>£<£<s2:^*/ 


THE  RELIGION  OF 
REVOLUTION 


HERBERT  S.  BIGELOW 


These  that  have  turned  the  world 
upside  down  are  come  hither  also. 


CINCINNATI,  OHIO 

PUBLISHED  BY  DANIEL  KIEFER 

1916 


Copyrighted,  1916 
by  Daniel  Kiefer 


1561274 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PACT 

Introduction    .......          7 

One  as  Well  as  Another    .          .          .          .          .11 

Our  Daily  Bread       .          .          .          .          .          .15 

Boxes  of  Alabaster  .          .          .          .          .23 

The  Religion  of  Inspired  Politics         .          .          .27 
A  Village  Infidel        .          .          .          .          .          -37 

The  Abolition  of  Poverty  .          .          .          .41 

A  Certain  Rich  Man 57 

A  Political  Parable 61 

Confiscation  .          .          .          .          .          .67 

The  Governor's  Congratulations         ...        73 
An  Agitator     .          .          .          .          .          .          -75 

The  Father's  Farm  .          .          .          .          .81 

Bad  for  Business       .          .          .          .          .          .85 

Jehovah  on  Woman's  Rights      .          .          .          .89 

A  Fourteen-Million-Dollar  Horse        ...        95 
Sons  of  Thunder      ......        99 

Mental  Sanitation     .          .  .          .          .      103 

A  Profession  of  Faith         .          .          .          .          .105 

Epitaphs  .          .         v        ...          .          .107 


TO   ALL 

THE   UNKNOWN  AND   UNSUSPECTED 
HEROES  OF  LIFE 


INTRODUCTION 


In  the  latter  part  of  the  nineties,  the  startlingly  uncon- 
ventional sermons  of  a  young  Cincinnati  preacher  created 
a  stir  in  conservative  church  circles  of  that  city.  Herbert 
S.  Bigelow,  pastor  of  the  Vine  Street  Congregational 
Church,  had  begun,  shortly  after  his  ordination,  to  apply 
to  public,  as  well  as  individual  affairs,  the  test  of  conform- 
ity with  basic  principles  of  religion.  In  his  sermons  he 
showed  how  some  accepted  institutions  and  social  prac- 
tices exist  in  violation  of  the  principles  to  which  members 
of  his  congregation  professed  adherence.  Naturally  such 
sermons  proved  more  or  less  shocking.  They  let  it  be 
known  that  the  attitude  of  many  so-called  Christians,  to- 
ward social  and  political  problems,  was  a  practical  repudi- 
ation of  Christianity.  That  was  bringing  matters  very 
close  to  leading  pillars  of  the  Vine  Street  Congregational 
Church,  and  these  pillars  vigorously  objected. 

The  young  pastor  at  first  received  warning  that  he 
should  not  hew  so  closely  to  the  line.  The  warning  was 
disregarded.  He  was  then  threatened,  with  no  different 
result.  It  was  time  for  action.  The  pillars  withdrew 
their  support.  But  the  novelty  of  a  church  that  insisted 
on  applied  religion  had  attracted  many  from  outside.  The 
places  of  the  professing  Christians  opposed  to  the  practice 
of  Christianity  were  taken  by  practical  Christians,  many 
of  whom  had  no  desire  to  be  regarded  as  professing  ones. 
The  influence  of  the  church  grew.  It  became  the  local 
center  of  fundamental  civic  reform.  Many  conservative 
Cincinnatians  began  to  seriously  discuss  new  and  strange 


The  Religion  of  Revolution 

ideas,  and  were  surprised  to  note  how  well  these  stood  the 
test  of  logic,  and  how  little  there  was  to  be  said  in  favor 
of  many  old  and  accepted  institutions.  The  civic  awaken- 
ing extended.  It  threatened  the  long-established  rule  of 
the  most  thoroughly  organized  political  ring  in  the  coun- 
try. It  finally  inflicted  several  defeats  upon  it. 

The  influence  of  the  movement  that  Bigelow's  uncon- 
ventional sermons  started  spread  beyond  the  city.  It  be- 
came a  force  that  covered  the  State  in  co-operation  with 
the  reform  movement  begun  in  Cleveland  with  the  election 
of  Tom  L.  Johnson  as  Mayor.  It  led  to  the  rewriting 
along  progressive  lines  of  the  Constitution  of  Ohio,  thus 
fulfilling  a  prediction  made  by  Mayor  Johnson  when  he 
began  to  realize  the  significance  of  Bigelow's  work. 

The  Vine  Street  Congregational  Church  has  developed 
into  the  People's  Church.  It  is  to-day  a  stronger  force 
than  ever  for  civic  good.  Its  value  is  attested  not  only  by 
the  support  of  those  who  have  visions  of  a  better  social 
order,  but  by  the  condemnation  of  those  who  oppose  all 
efforts  to  make  the  world  a  better  place  in  which  to  live. 

It  would  have  been  unpardonable  negligence  to  omit 
an  effort  to  preserve  in  permanent  form  at  least  some  of 
the  sermons  which  have  had  such  far-reaching  and  benefi- 
cent results.  For  this  reason,  this  book  is  to  be  welcomed. 
Aside  from  the  interest  they  must  possess,  on  account  of 
their  practical  results,  they  deserve  to  rank  as  literary 
classics.  In  time  to  come,  the  sermons  and  lectures  of 
Herbert  S.  Bigelow  will  be  awarded  their  proper  place 
among  the  gems  of  American  literature. 

MRS.  JOSEPH   (MARY)   PELS. 


THE  RELIGION  OF 
REVOLUTION 


ONE  AS  WELL  AS  ANOTHER 

Remove  the  mitre,  and  take  off  the  crown;  this  shall  be 
no  more  the  same;  exalt  that  which  is  low,  and  abase  that 
which  is  high.  I  will  overturn,  overturn,  overturn  it :  this 
also  shall  be  no  more,  until  he  come  whose  right  it  is ;  and  I 
will  give  it  to  him. — Ezekiel. 

Wendell  Phillips  declared  that  churches  were  the  great 
apologists  for  every  powerful  wrong.  Nevertheless,  Chris- 
tianity is  the  religion  of  revolution.  Churches  may  not 
always  be  agencies  of  revolution,  but  Christianity  is. 

At  the  heart  of  all  the  Christian  theologies  is  the  doc- 
trine of  the  supreme  worth  of  the  individual  soul.  There 
can  be  no  peace  between  that  doctrine  and  any  form  of 
slavery. 

Jesus  taught  that  in  the  humblest  peasant  of  Judea 
there  was  that  which  is  greater  than  the  temple,  an  im- 
mortal soul.  The  souls  of  the  lowliest  of  earth,  in  the 
sight  of  God,  must  be  equal  to  the  highest.  That  teaching 
is  dynamite  to  every  institution  of  human  oppression. 

Churches  may  make  their  peace  with  the  world.  Church 
people  may  condone  conditions  which  lift  a  few  into  the 
light,  while  putting  burdens  upon  many  too  grievous  to  be 
borne.  But  such  people  are  not  Christian.  They  are 
merely  worldly  people  who  have  a  superficial  attachment 
to  an  established  ecclesiastical  institution. 

Christianity  is  the  faith  that  the  souls  of  men  are  of 
supreme  and  equal  worth  to  God.  That  is  the  central  fire 
of  the  great  gospel  of  the  Galilean.  Social  injustice  is  the 
denial  of  that  faith.  If  that  faith  has  become  a  vital  prin- 
ciple in  a  man's  life,  if  it  has  reconstructed  him,  if  it  has 


12  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

brought  to  him  the  reality  of  a  new  birth,  he  cannot  be 
a  defender  of  social  injustice,  he  cannot  be  indifferent  to 
social  injustice,  he  cannot  be  silent  because  social  injustice 
is  profitable  to  him.  He  will  recoil  from  conditions  which 
give  the  lie  to  his  faith.  He  will  have  to  think  in  terms  of 
his  faith.  He  will  have  to  act  consistently  with  it. 

To  the  degree  that  Christianity  is  genuine,  it  must  be 
a  revolutionary  force  in  the  world.  If  a  church  is  not  a 
revolutionary  force,  and  to  the  degree  that  it  is  not,  its 
Christianity  is  not  genuine.  The  soul  of  the  Christ  is 
not  in  it. 

According  to  Ezekiel,  Jehovah  said  of  the  land  which 
was  given  to  the  children  of  Israel:  "Ye  shall  inherit  it, 
one  as  well  as  another."  One  as  well  as  another.  That 
is  a  sentiment  worthy  of  the  God  of  Jesus.  That  is  the 
way  a  just  and  loving  father  would  legislate  for  his  chil- 
dren. 

So,  if  we  are  members  of  a  Christian  church,  we  profess 
to  believe  that  God  loves  all  of  His  children,  and  that  it 
is  our  first  duty  to  Him  to  deal  justly  with  one  another. 
But  is  this  profession  anything  more  than  a  motion  of  the 
lips?  Let  us  apply  an  acid  test. 

At  the  church  door  stands  a  limousine.  There  are  two 
uniformed  attendants.  One  is  at  the  wheel.  The  other, 
with  the  faultless  manner  of  a  perfectly  trained  servant,  is 
helping  a  lady  into  the  machine.  Do  you  know  who  the 
lady  is?  She  is  the  owner  of  a  fraction  of  an  acre  of 
ground  at  the  most  valuable  corner  of  a  great  city,  from 
which  she  receives  an  annual  income  of  fifty  thousand 
dollars  a  year. 

A  merchant  had  been  paying  her  a  ground  rent  of  forty- 
five  thousand  dollars  a  year,  but  his  lease  expired,  and  she 
recently  raised  the  rent  five  thousand  dollars. 

The  merchant  is  thought  to  be  prosperous.     But  times 


One  as  Well  as  Another  13 

have  been  dull.  For  months,  expenses  have  been  greater 
than  receipts.  The  banks  have  been  crowding  him.  The 
man  has  fallen  away  under  the  strain  as  though  he  had 
been  stricken  by  a  mortal  disease.  Nevertheless  he  could 
not  move.  That  would  have  been  certain  ruin.  There- 
fore he  agreed  to  the  increase. 

But  how  could  he  meet  this  extra  charge?  He  could 
not  add  it  to  the  price  of  goods.  His  customers  would 
leave  him  if  he  did  that.  There  was  but  one  thing  left  to 
do.  He  had  been  paying  generous  wages.  He  could 
cut  them. 

This  he  did.  At  first  there  was  indignant  talk  of  a 
strike,  and  some  left.  But  others  were  easily  found  to 
take  their  places  at  reduced  pay.  There  is  in  his  employ 
a  woman  who  is  supporting  an  only  child,  a  little  girl. 
Her  wage  was  reduced  to  eight  dollars  a  week.  She  had 
been  getting  ten  dollars.  Two  dollars  a  week  were  taken 
from  her  to  help  pay  the  increased  rent  to  the  owner  of 
the  site. 

Now  it  happens  that  the  rich  woman  also  has  an  only 
child,  a  little  girl.  The  children  are  about  of  the  same 
age.  Nature  seems  to  have  shown  no  partiality  between 
them.  They  are  beautiful  children.  They  are  not  daugh- 
ters of  ancient  Israel.  They  are  daughters  of  America. 
But  did  not  God  give  us  the  land  of  America?  Has  His 
justice  degenerated  since  He  gave  Palestine  to  the  Jews? 
If  Palestine  was  given  to  the  Jews,  to  one  as  well  as  an- 
other, was  not  America  given  to  us,  to  one  as  well  as  to 
another? 

Yet  what  is  the  economic  status  of  these  two  little  girls  ? 
One  will  inherit  the  legal  privilege  to  live  without  labor 
and  to  draw  an  income  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
The  other  will  inherit  the  right  to  earn  eight  dollars  a 
week,  standing  ten  hours  a  day  behind  a  counter,  and  after 


14  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

that  she  will  have  to  go  to  some  wretched  little  tenement 
house  room  to  cook  and  scrub  and  mend. 

Does  God  love  one  of  these  children  more  than  the 
other?  The  one  can  hardly  hope  to  earn  as  much  as  five 
hundred  dollars  a  year.  The  other  will  receive,  without 
•working,  a  hundred  times  that.  Does  God  love  one  of 
these  children  a  hundred  times  more  than  the  other?  If 
not,  then  is  it  right  for  this  government  of  yours  and  mine 
to  permit  such  favoritism  ?  Why  should  any  be  permitted 
to  inherit  the  right  to  live  in  idle  luxury  when  many  in- 
herit nothing  but  the  right  to  drudge  in  poverty  ?  Is  that 
Christian  ? 

If  the  advances  in  land  value  on  that  and  every  other  lot 
of  the  city  are  due  to  the  growth  of  the  city  and  to  the  in- 
dustry of  all,  why  should  not  these  sums  be  drawn  into  the 
public  treasury  to  relieve  industry  of  the  burden  of  taxation 
and  to  protect  the  weak  against  destitution  and  despair  ? 

How  shall  you  know  whether  or  not  a  man  is  a  Chris- 
tian ?  Do  not  ask  him  to  recite  his  creed.  Ask  him  what 
he  thinks  about  a  government  which  fails  to  do  its  utmost 
to  secure  to  all  of  God's  children  a  fair  start,  an  equal 
chance  in  life.  If  he  is  satisfied  with  such  a  government, 
if  he  is  afraid  to  change  it  for  fear  he  may  lose  a  few  dol- 
lars, then  he  is  no  Christian.  He  may  be  a  church  mem- 
ber. He  may  even  be  the  preacher.  But  his  Christianity 
is  counterfeit.  There  is  but  one  thing  to  say  to  such  a 
man.  It  is  what  Jesus  said  to  Nicodemus.  His  soul  has 
not  yet  been  born  into  the  spirit  of  the  Christ. 


OUR  DAILY  BREAD 

Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread. — Jesus. 

Hear  how  this  Christian  civilization  of  ours  answered  this 
prayer  for  one  man,  named  Frank  Jandik,  a  Bohemian. 
Oh.  I  do  not  mean  how  Christian  Bohemia  answered  it, 
but  how  Christian  America  answered  it.  For  Frank  Jan- 
dik was  a  Bohemian  peasant  who  came  to  America,  lured 
by  that  old  world  dream  of  a  new  world  of  freedom  and  a 
chance  for  all. 

This  man  heard  the  call  of  America.  That  charmed 
name  fired  his  soul.  He  would  not  forever  plow  the  fields 
he  could  never  own.  He  would  go  to  America.  He  would 
be  free.  He  would  go  and  make  a  home  for  his  young 
wife,  Barbara.  In  that  land  of  hope  he  would  escape  from 
the  brutal  servitude  of  his  fathers.  "Give  us  this  day  our 
daily  bread."  With  this  prayer  on  his  lips,  and  with  great 
hopes  in  his  heart,  Frank  Jandik  came,  came  to  the  mighty 
nation  in  the  great  new  world  of  the  West,  came  to  share 
its  inviting  bounty  and  its  promised  care. 

In  that  eventful  year  of  his  life,  fifteen  years  ago,  Frank 
Jandik  beheld  the  masted  harbor,  and  the  lifted  torch  of 
the  benign  goddess,  mighty  mother  of  exiles,  proudly  bid- 
ding world-wide  welcome  to  the  oppressed  of  all  the  earth. 

Passing  through  the  port  of  New  York,  Frank  Jandik 
arrived  in  the  city  of  Cleveland,  his  destination.  He  was 
alone.  He  must  work  and  send  for  his  Barbara.  They 
could  not  afford  to  come  together.  He  was  alone,  with 
ten  dollars  in  his  pocket.  But  he  felt  rich,  for,  in  addition 
to  that  ten  dollars,  he  was  in  full  possession  of  all  of  his 
illusions  about  this  land  of  freedom  to  which  he  had  come. 


16  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

He  found  work,  not  steady  work,  but  he  got  $1.65  a 
day,  out  of  which,  in  a  few  months,  he  had  saved  sixty 
dollars.  This  was  sent  to  Barbara,  his  young  wife,  who 
came,  bearing  in  her  arms  his  second  child,  whom  he  had 
not  seen.  The  first  was  left  in  a  little  Bohemian  grave. 

On  the  arrival  of  his  little  family,  Jandik  went  to  work 
in  a  rolling-mill  for  $1.45  a  day.  This  was  a  reduced 
wage,  but  he  hoped  that  the  work  would  be  steady.  They 
paid  three  dollars  and  twenty-five  cents  a  month  rent. 
Later  this  was  increased  to  four  dollars. 

Thus,  in  a  four-dollar  tenement,  on  a  wage  of  $1.45  a 
day,  Frank  and  Barbara  Jandik  entered  upon  their  life  in 
the  new  world  which  was  to  teach  them  the  difference  be- 
tween slavery  in  Bohemia  and  freedom  in  America. 

Ten  years  passed.  There  were  four  little  mouths  to 
feed  now,  instead  of  one.  There  were  children  to  clothe 
and  send  to  school.  This  had  to  be  done  on  an  average 
income  of  ten  dollars  a  week. 

But  Frank  Jandik  did  not  fail  these  little  ones.  He 
worked  patiently,  and  Barbara  managed  the  meager  fam- 
ily budget  in  a  way  that  would  have  done  credit  to  the 
Lord  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  They  had  ten  cents 
a  week  for  the  church  of  Our  Lady  of  Lourdes,  to  which 
they  belonged.  They  paid  $1.55  a  month  dues  to  a  church 
society  to  carry  an  insurance  of  $1,000.00  The  rent  was 
paid  promptly.  They  had  "chuck"  steak  twice  a  week. 
Groceries  cost  six  dollars  a  week.  There  was  a  dollar  a 
week  for  clothes.  There  was  fifteen  cents  a  week  for  beer, 
fifteen  cents  a  week  for  tobacco,  six  cents  a  week  for  a 
Bohemian  newspaper.  Occasionally  the  Jandiks  enjoyed 
the  luxury  of  a  street-car  ride  to  the  city  parks.  Yet  they 
were  able  to  pay  a  dollar  a  week  into  the  Vcela  Building 
and  Loan  Association,  for  Frank  and  Barbara  aspired  to 
own  a  home  of  their  own. 


Our  Daily  Bread  17 

Was  this  the  golden  opportunity  of  which  these  two  had 
dreamed  for  themselves  and  their  little  ones?  Well,  if  it 
was  not,  they  did  not  complain.  They  owed  no  man. 
They  were  actually  saving  something.  They  had  their 
children.  They  still  had  hope. 

This  was  the  condition  of  the  Jandiks  when  there  oc- 
curred what  is  known  as  the  bankers'  panic.  Frank  Jandik 
had  to  take  his  pay  in  clearing-house  certificates,  which 
were  discounted  at  usurious  rates.  But  that  was  not  the 
worst.  On  the  sixteenth  of  November  of  that  year  he  lost 
his  job.  He  sought  another,  but  found  none.  The  neigh- 
bors said  the  man  walked  the  streets  ten  hours  a  day  in 
search  of  work.  A  snowstorm  came  that  tied  up  traffic. 
Men  were  needed  to  haul  away  the  snow.  Jandik  worked 
at  that  for  four  days.  That  was  all  he  found  to  do  for 
six  months. 

This  was  a  terrible  six  months.  The  fifty-one  dollars 
they  had  in  the  Building  and  Loan  Association  had  to  be 
taken  out  and  used.  In  their  extremity  the  family  moved 
from  their  pretentious  four-dollar  tenement  to  a  shed. 
Then,  although  the  burden  of  approaching  motherhood 
was  upon  her,  Barbara  Jandik  began  taking  in  washing. 
In  the  one  room  of  that  wretched  hovel  she  washed.  In 
the  slush  and  snow  of  the  back  yard  she  hung  up  her 
clothes.  The  lake  winds  cut  her  to  the  bone.  Rheumatic 
pains  pierced  her  joints.  It  was  a  desperate  fight,  a 
mother's  and  father's  fight  against  the  hunger  of  little 
children.  It  was  a  fight,  too,  for  self-respect,  a  fight  to 
keep  up  a  brave  front  in  the  face  of  adversity.  In  those 
bitter  days  Annie  Jandik  was  kept  in  school,  and  the  child 
always  had  a  clean  dress  and  a  bit  of  faded  ribbon  in 
her  hair. 

They  had  been  honest  people,  and  the  shopkeepers  trust- 
ed them.  But  the  debts  were  piling  high.  Jandik  would 


1 8  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

come  home  after  a  fruitless  quest  for  work,  and  weep.  It 
was  Barbara  now  who  was  the  brave  one.  Things  must 
brighten  for  them,  she  would  cheerily  assure  her  husband. 
She  could  always  wash.  They  would  not  starve.  And  to 
keep  the  others  from  starving  this  mother  would  go  for 
days  at  a  time  without  food.  This  was  not  in  Bohemia. 
Oh,  no;  it  was  in  America,  and  Frank  and  Barbara  were 
devout  and  they  prayed,  ah!  how  they  prayed,  just  for 
their  daily  bread. 

But  April  came,  and  the  mill  opened,  and  Jandik  was 
taken  back.  He  was  not  employed  at  full  time.  He 
worked  five  days  in  the  week  for  $1.45  a  day  wheeling 
iron.  But  wheeling  iron  for  a  dollar  and  forty-five  cents 
a  day  was  a  precious  privilege.  There  was  not  enough  of 
this  privilege  to  go  around.  Others  also  were  in  desperate 
need,  and  this  American  freedom  to  wheel  iron  for  seven 
dollars  and  twenty-five  cents  a  week  had  to  be  spread  out 
thin.  So  Jandik  worked  a  week  and  was  laid  off  a  week. 
But  work,  even  at  that  wage,  at  half  time,  was  like  a 
release  to  the  man.  Besides,  Barbara  continued  to  wash. 
Some  ray  of  hope  at  least  had  come. 

Then  another  blow  fell.  Jandik's  sister,  who  had  fol- 
lowed him  from  Bohemia,  a  seamstress,  twenty  years  old, 
died  of  tuberculosis.  Jandik  buried  her.  That  was  an- 
other debt  added  to  their  load. 

Nevertheless,  they  began,  even  out  of  their  restricted 
income,  to  make  payments  on  the  old  debts,  and  they  con- 
tracted no  new  ones. 

Then  a  thing  happened  which  might  be  looked  upon 
as  a  calamity  in  unhappy  Bohemia,  but  surely  not  in  free 
America.  Twins  were  born.  It  was  the  Thursday  night 
before  Easter  that  they  came.  The  father  came  home 
from  his  night's  work  in  the  mill  and  found  two  eight- 
pound  girls  added  to  the  family  circle  in  the  shed.  And  he 


Our  Daily  Bread  ig 

was  proud.  The  avoidance  of  children  was  a  crime.  So 
his  church  had  taught  him.  To  teach  men  that,  without 
doing  something  to  make  a  better  place  for  children  when 
they  come,  that  would  be  a  crime  for  the  church  in  Bo- 
hemia, possibly,  but  why  should  not  Barbara  and  Frank 
Jandik  rejoice  in  many  children  to  share  with  them  the 
bounties  of  American  freedom? 

The  next  Sunday  was  Easter.  Father  Furdek's  church 
was  to  be  gayly  decorated  for  his  eight  hundred  children. 
Annie  and  Rosie  Jandik  must  go.  On  Saturday  the  mother 
of  the  twins,  less  than  two  days  old,  got  out  of  bed  and 
washed  her  children's  dresses  that  they  might  be  present- 
able at  church  next  day. 

Sunday  the  children  went  to  church,  but  the  mother  had 
a  temperature  of  105.  That  night  one  of  the  twins  died. 
They  put  the  little  body  in  a  box  and  took  it  in  a  buggy  to 
Woodland  cemetery.  They  opened  the  fresh  grave  of  the 
seamstress  and  placed  the  box  on  the  coffin  of  the  dead 
sister. 

The  second  twin  died  this  same  day.  The  poor  mother 
would  not  let  them  take  this  second  child  from  her.  She 
was  in  the  torturing  flames  of  peritonitis,  and  she  held  the 
dead  child  to  her  burning  body. 

Tuesday  night  came.  It  was  eleven  o'clock.  A  gale 
blew  from  the  lake.  The  temperature  had  fallen  30  de- 
grees. The  theatre  crowds  shivered.  Automobile  doors 
slammed.  The  pleasure  seekers  gathered  their  wraps  about 
them  and  hurried  away.  It  was  a  raw  night.  There  was 
no  fire  in  the  shed  in  the  rear  of  the  house  at  3588  East 
Seventy-second  Street.  But  there  was  one — yes,  two — 
who  had  no  more  need  of  fires  or  sheds.  That  night  Bar- 
bara Jandik  raised  her  hand  to  the  picture  of  Mary  at  the 
Sepulchre  that  hung  on  the  wall  over  her  bed,  and  gave  a 
little  choking  sob  and  died. 


2O  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

In  that  awful  hour  two  of  the  children  slept.  Annie 
and  Rosie  stood  by  with  swollen  eyes.  They  could  under- 
stand in  part.  But  there  was  one  in  the  room  who  under- 
stood all.  There  were  great  hairy  arms  and  hands  all 
knotted  with  the  labor  of  years.  These  hands  reached 
for  the  Barbara  that  had  gone,  and  the  bed  shook  with 
sobs,  as  Frank  Jandik  thought  of  the  rosy-cheeked  girl 
he  had  courted  in  the  rustic  Bohemian  home.  The  great 
hopes  they  shared  had  withered,  like  the  roses  in  poor 
Barbara's  cheeks.  Was  it  for  this  that  he  had  brought  his 
bride  from  the  land  of  their  fathers?  Ah,  they  had  asked 
but  little.  "Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread."  That  was 
all  they  had  asked  of  rich  America.  They  had  not  prayed 
merely.  They  had  worked.  God,  how  they  had  worked ! 
The  man  had  asked  for  bread,  and  his  heart  was  turning 
to  stone. 

Frank  Jandik  spent  that  night  with  his  own  grief  and 
the  dead  mother  and  child.  But  the  next  night  he  was  not 
there.  The  next  night  he  did  not  watch  with  the  dead. 
No,  this  prize  of  American  freedom  must  not  be  sacrificed 
even  to  watch  over  one's  own  dead.  Barbara  could  help  no 
more.  Annie  would  have  to  be  mother  as  best  she  could. 
Great  as  their  need  had  been,  it  was  greater  now.  So  the 
next  night,  before  the  burial,  the  man  was  back  at  his  work 
amid  the  hissing  tongues  of  iron,  his  breast  bared  to  the 
furnace's  heat,  his  eyes  blazing  in  the  molten  glare. 

Thursday  morning  they  took  a  thirty-dollar  coffin  from 
East  Seventy-second  Street.  The  humble  neighbors  had 
come  and  wept  over  mother  and  child.  And  Mrs.  Ptacek 
said  that  Barbara  looked  ten  years  younger,  and  was  even 
smiling. 

Again  the  diggers  opened  the  seamstress's  grave.  They 
took  out  the  box  and  the  coffin.  They  dug  it  deeper  that 
all  four  might  lie  in  the  same  place.  This  saved  Jandik 


Our  Daily  Bread  21 

seven  dollars.  That  seven  dollars  was  sorely  needed  now. 
It  would  buy  seven  dollars  more  of  American  freedom  for 
Annie  and  Rosie  and  John  and  little  Frank. 

This,  my  friends,  is  the  story  of  the  Jandiks,  all  I  know 
of  it.  It  will  be  a  marvel  if  the  rest  of  the  story  is  not 
worse  than  the  part  I  have  told.  What  will  become  of 
that  motherless  family  ?  Will  the  father  come  home  from 
the  mill  some  day  to  find  a  daughter  worse  than  dead? 
Will  the  boys  of  Barbara  Jandik  grow  up  in  the  streets  to 
add  shame  to  their  father's  poverty? 

Perhaps  some  day  a  learned  professor  will  measure  the 
shaven  head  of  one  of  these  Jandik  boys  and  discourse 
learnedly  on  the  heredity  of  criminal  tendencies.  Perhaps 
a  Judge  will  sit  on  the  bench  some  day  and  pass  judgment 
on  the  ruined  life  of  one  of  Barbara's  daughters.  Perhaps 
Frank  Jandik  himself  will  reach  the  limit  of  his  moral  en- 
durance and  take  to  drink  and  commit  crime.  Then  the 
temperance  society  will  hold  him  up  as  another  horrible 
example,  and  the  delinquency  of  his  children  will  be  laid 
at  the  door  of  demon  rum. 

The  destruction  of  the  poor  is  their  poverty. 


BOXES  OF  ALABASTER 

The  poor  ye  have  always  with  you.—Jestu. 

"Help  the  poor?  Certainly.  Help  abolish  poverty ?  Cer- 
tainly not.  It  can't  be  done.  Jesus  said  so.  There  always 
must  be  poor,  because  there  always  have  been  poor.  So 
let  us  break  our  alabaster  box,  light  our  Havana,  take  our 
joy  ride,  and  be  thankful  that  the  poor  will  be  here  when 
we  get  back.  We  can  be  good  to  the  poor  any  time,  there- 
fore we  will  be  good  to  ourselves  all  the  time." 

This  is  the  use  they  make  of  the  chance  words  of  Him 
who  taught  the  world  compassion  for  all  the  weary  and 
heavy-laden.  Such  use  of  this  text  recalls  the  thrust  of 
Lincoln  about  the  verbal  tricks  of  Douglas,  whose  argu- 
ment he  characterized  as  "a  specious  and  fantastic  arrange- 
ment of  words  by  which  a  man  can  prove  a  horse  chestnut 
to  be  a  chestnut  horse."  Some  Bible  quoting  is  of  that 
order. 

The  friends  who  sat  at  meat  in  that  Bethany  home 
knew  that  the  life  of  their  leader  was  in  danger.  Foes 
were  lying  in  wait  for  him.  In  spite  of  that  he  was  deter- 
mined to  go  up  to  the  city.  Think  of  it!  They  might 
soon  be  lifting  gall  and  vinegar  to  those  lips  that  spoke 
beatitudes  to  the  people.  The  thought  of  that  wrenched 
the  heart  of  one  in  the  company.  Accounts  differ,  but 
John  says  that  it  was  Mary,  the  sister  of  Martha. 

With  a  woman's  intuition  that  he  was  departing  to  his 
death,  she  did  a  beautiful  thing.  She  had  an  alabaster  box 
of  precious  ointment.  She  would  not  wait  to  anoint  his 
body  for  the  burial.  She  would  show  her  appreciation 
while  he  lived.  The  box  was  broken  and  the  costly  spices. 


24  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

were  mingled  with  the  woman's  tears  to  bathe  the  Mas- 
ter's feet.  It  is  deeds  like  these  that  smooth  the  roads  to 
Calvary. 

The  beauty  of  the  scene  was  marred  by  the  ungracious 
remark  of  some  one  that  the  woman  might  better  have  dis- 
tributed alms  to  the  poor.  "The  poor  ye  have  always  with 
you,  but  me  ye  have  not  always."  Jesus,  with  these  gentle 
words,  half  apologized  for  the  rudeness  of  his  disciple, 
and  accepted,  with  gratitude,  the  impulsive  offering. 

And  this  is  the  text  which  is  quoted  as  an  excuse  for 
doing  nothing  inconvenient  to  abolish  poverty.  What  war- 
rant have  we  to  draw  any  inference  from  the  words,  save 
this,  that  the  soul  hungers  for  love  as  well  as  the  body  for 
bread,  and  that  not  all  boxes  of  alabaster  are  wasted  which 
are  not  given  to  the  poor? 

Why  was  it  that  when  Jesus  was  in  Jerusalem  he  always 
went  out  and  stopped  at  the  Bethany  home  ?  Perhaps  the 
reason  was  Mary. 

On  that  last  night,  when  all  the  friends  had  entreated 
him  not  to  risk  his  life  in  Jerusalem,  it  may  be  that  there 
were  words  spoken  between  Him  and  Mary  which  are 
not  written  in  Scripture,  and  that  a  scene  was  enacted 
which  no  artist  has  painted. 

What  a  picture  it  would  make,  that  last  farewell,  be- 
tween those  two,  apart  from  the  rest,  in  the  garden  of 
Bethany ! 

If  you  were  painting  the  picture,  would  you  dare  put  in 
her  eyes  the  light  of  a  woman's  love,  and  would  you  dare 
put  in  his  face  the  least  shadow  of  regret  that  for  her  he 
could  not  stay?  But  you  would  not  have  her  plead  with 
the  rest,  would  you?  No;  picture  the  woman  a  worthy 
daughter  of  her  wonderful  race.  Let  her  press  a  rose  into 
his  hand  and  bid  him  go,  he  to  become  a  victim  of  the 
cross,  she  the  bride  of  Calvary. 


Boxes  of  Alabaster  25 

A  certain  father  has  thought  so  well  of  his  stock  that  he 
has  brought  seven  children  into  the  world.  Now,  how- 
ever, he  says  that  the  oldest  girl  must  leave  home.  He 
refuses  longer  to  support  her.  So  she  is  going  to  leave 
school  to  become  a  factory  hand  at  six  dollars  a  week.  Yet 
this  father  spends  that  sum  every  week  at  the  saloon. 
There  is  a  difference  between  emptying  a  keg  of  beer  into 
one's  self  and  breaking  an  alabaster  box  of  affection  once 
in  a  while  for  the  children  of  one's  household. 

There  is  an  old  woman  whose  hands  are  knotted  with 
toil.  After  raising  her  own  family  she  took  under  her 
wing  a  motherless  brood.  Now  she  is  bent  and  broken.  Is 
there  any  one  to  appreciate  the  eloquence  of  those  crippled 
hands?  Is  there  a  tender  voice  to  say  to  her  every  day, 
"Come,  dear  little  mother;  rest  after  your  labors"?  No. 
It  is  pitiful.  She  gets  less  courtesy  than  a  cat  in  the  house 
of  her  own  children.  She  is  in  the  way.  In  that  strident 
household  she  is  waiting  and  wishing  to  die.  Do  not  give 
all  the  alabaster  boxes  to  the  poor.  Save  one  for  her  who 
sits  now  and  dreams  of  the  journey  that  is  ended. 

In  a  distant  city  I  received  a  telephone  call  from  a 
woman  at  whose  wedding  I  had  officiated  some  fifteen 
years  before.  I  was  earnestly  invited  to  visit  them  in 
their  home.  I  did  not  want  to  go.  Do  you  know  why? 
You  hear  people  say  at  a  funeral  that  they  do  not  wish  to 
see  the  remains ;  that  they  prefer  to  remember  their  friend 
as  he  was  when  he  lived.  Well,  that  is  how  I  feel  about 
people  I  have  married.  I  am  afraid  to  see  them  after  fif- 
teen years  of  married  life.  I  prefer  to  remember  them  as 
they  were  when  they  loved. 

There  is  no  tragedy  like  the  bitter  disillusionment  which 
leaves  marriage  a  wretched  commerce  of  lust  and  greed. 
So  I  dreaded  to  go.  But  I  went.  What  did  I  find?  It 
was  a  miracle.  I  had  seen  that  bride  fifteen  years  before, 


26  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

amid  a  bower  of  apple-blossomst  Now,  after  all  these 
years,  she  had  the  same  radiant  face;  and  about  the  house 
was  the  fragrance  of  wedding-flowers. 

But  there  were  more  than  the  blossoms.  In  from  a 
sand-pile,  dirty  and  happy,  toddled  a  boy,  with  a  funny 
little  slant  in  his  eyes  and  a  mouth  that  was  made  for 
kissing.  Down  the  stairs  came  a  daughter,  with  the  long 
braid  of  a  schoolgirl  and  a  face  aglow  with  health.  Then 
warning  was  given,  and  we  tiptoed  in  to  see,  fast  asleep  in 
his  cradle,  the  baby,  with  a  little  pink  foot  sticking  out  of 
the  covers  and  a  rag  dog  cuddled  under  his  arm. 

We  are  invited  into  many  houses,  but  few  homes.  A 
home  is  a  house  in  which  an  alabaster  box  of  tenderness 
and  affection  is  frequently  broken.  We  live  in  heart 
throbs.  Life  consists  of  appreciation,  felt  and  expressed. 
Without  that,  homes  are  only  houses — prisons,  in  fact — 
and  life  is  nothing  but  a  living  death. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  INSPIRED  POLITICS 

Justice,  justice  shalt  thou  follow. — Deuteronomy. 

The  guinea-pig  is  not  an  impressive  animal.  But  he  has  a 
remarkable  name.  This  name  is  remarkable  in  that  the 
animal  is  not  a  pig  and  did  not  come  from  Guinea. 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  used  to  protest,  in  this  gentle 
way,  against  the  misuse  of  the  term,  the  Christian  religion. 
He  thought  that  in  some  cases  the  name  guinea-pig  religion 
would  be  better,  since  what  was  sometimes  called  Chris- 
tian religion  was  neither  Christian  nor  religion. 

The  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan  is  an  exposition  of 
religion  as  taught  by  the  founder  of  Christianity.  It  would 
not  be  fair  to  say  that  this  parable  is  a  complete  exposition. 
But  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  quality  insisted  upon  by  the 
parable  is  essential  to  any  religion  which  is  rightly  called 
Christian. 

The  priest  and  the  Levite  of  the  parable  were  the  re- 
spectable representatives  of  the  orthodox  religion  of  their 
time.  The  Good  Samaritan  was  a  despised  heretic.  Yet 
in  exalting  the  Samaritan,  the  author  of  the  parable  does 
not  commit  himself  to  the  Samaritan  heresy.  He  does, 
however,  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  deed  of  the  Samaritan 
is  a  more  satisfactory  test  of  a  man's  religion  than  the  creed 
of  the  priest. 

The  Samaritan  could  not  have  improved  upon  himself 
by  exchanging  his  humanity  for  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
priest.  But  the  priest  could  have  improved  upon  himself 
by  exchanging  his  orthodoxy  for  the  humanity  of  the  Sa- 
maritan. 

Noble  acts  are  better  than  icy  opinions.    Mercy  covers  a 


28  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

multitude  of  heresies.  Whatever  else  the  Christian  re- 
ligion may  be,  we  are  entitled  to  say  that  one  of  its  essen- 
tial qualities  must  be  a  warm-hearted  devotion  to  the  needs 
of  suffering  humanity. 

This  parable  certainly  teaches  that  if  we  ever  happen  to 
be  on  the  road  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho  and  hear  a  man 
groaning  in  a  ditch,  it  is  our  duty  to  go  to  the  man,  bind 
up  his  wounds,  get  him  to  the  nearest  hotel,  and  see  that  he 
is  cared  for,  and  not  left  to  die.  But  it  must  be  admitted 
that  this  parable  will  have  slight  application  in  our  day  if 
we  wait  to  encounter  precisely  these  circumstances. 

The  business  of  the  highwaymen  was  a  conspiracy  in  re- 
straint of  trade.  Modern  governments  have  suppressed  the 
highway  robber.  Our  Supreme  Courts  will  not  permit 
robberies  that  are  not  reasonable.  We  do  not  tolerate  any 
unrefined  methods  of  getting  something  for  nothing. 

We  have  to  deal,  not  with  the  occasional  victim  of  per- 
sonal violence,  but  with  the  widespread  effects  of  unjust 
institutions.  The  charity  of  a  primitive  community  is  no 
substitute  for  justice  in  a  complex  society. 

A  man  cannot  be  a  Good  Samaritan  to-day,  certainly  not 
in  any  very  vital  or  important  way,  unless  he  has  imagin- 
ation to  feel  the  suffering  he  never  sees,  and  economic 
understanding  to  provide  an  institutional  remedy  for  insti- 
tutional ills. 

The  case  which  is  presented  in  the  parable  appears  to  be 
one  which  called  for  charity  and  nothing  more.  But  sup- 
pose that  Jerusalem  and  Jericho  had  been  self-governing 
communities.  Suppose  that  the  Samaritan  had  been  a  Jeri- 
cho merchant,  with  a  vote  in  his  city  and  political  influ- 
ence there.  Suppose  he  had  been  well  aware  of  the  fact 
that  his  city  government  was  corrupt  and  in  league  with 
robber  bands  which  raided  travelers  under  protection  of 
the  police,  and  divided  the  booty  with  political  bosses. 


The  Religion  of  Inspired  Politics  29 

Suppose  he  had  known  that  this  wretched  man  was  in 
reality,  therefore,  a  victim  of  the  Jericho  government, 
which  might  have  protected  the  life  and  property  of  all, 
but  which  was  run  to  foster  the  predatory  interests  of 
a  few. 

If  this  had  been  the  situation,  it  could  not  have  been 
satisfactorily  met  by  isolated  acts  of  charity.  After  caring 
for  this  one  victim,  it  would  have  been  the  duty  of  the 
Samaritan  to  try  to  prevent  a  repetition  of  such  crimes. 
It  would  have  been  his  duty  to  try  to  break  up  the  partner- 
ship between  his  city  government  and  the  robbers. 

If  we  can  prevent  suffering,  it  is  more  important  to  do 
so  than  to  relieve  it.  We  may  feel  constrained  to  pay  our 
tithe  to  charity,  but  we  should  not  omit  the  weightier  mat- 
ters of  the  law ;  certainly  not  if  we  believe  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  suffering  is  needlessly  produced  by  the  injustice 
of  the  law. 

More  Good  Samaritans  are  needed  in  politics — men 
who  have  a  vision  of  what  an  infinite  mercy  it  would  be  if 
we  could  uproot  from  our  government  every  vestige  of  spe- 
cial privilege  and  guarantee  to  every  man  an  equal  chance 
with  every  other. 

We  need  Good  Samaritans  who  have,  besides  the  vision, 
the  faith  that  this  can  be  done ;  men  who,  with  consecrated 
enthusiasm  and  a  sound  comprehension  of  economic  laws, 
will  work  passionately  for  a  truer  freedom  than  the  world 
has  yet  known.  This  is  what  we  call  the  religion  of  in- 
spired politics. 

The  problem  of  the  Good  Samaritan  in  our  day  is  essen- 
tially a  problem  of  government.  Adequate  remedies  must 
come,  not  through  personal,  but  through  political  action. 

If  the  Christian  religion  necessarily  implies  devotion  to 
the  needs  of  suffering  humanity,  and  if  these  needs  cannot 
be  served,  save  by  the  agency  of  government,  then  it  is  an 


30  The  Religion   of  Revolution 

important  function  of  the  Church  to  urge  upon  men  the 
duty  of  political  justice. 

Let  us  examine  two  questions:  What  are  the  problems 
of  the  modern  Samaritan  ?  To  what  extent  is  government 
responsible  for  these  problems? 

The  Samaritan  of  the  parable  found  on  the  roadside  one 
victim  of  an  illegal  industry.  In  the  United  States  there 
are  over  three  million  victims  a  year  of  our  legal  industries. 
Let  us  imagine  a  wooden  platform  the  length  of  a  man's 
body.  Let  us  raise  on  each  side  of  the  platform  a  tall  tim- 
ber, and  join  them  with  a  beam  at  the  top.  Let  us  fix  a 
heavy  piece  of  wood  to  slip  up  and  down  in  grooves.  On 
the  under  side  of  this  moving  piece  let  us  fasten  a  sharp, 
ugly  knife,  so  that  when  the  piece  falls  the  knife  will  cut 
off  the  head  of  a  man,  or  anything  else  that  may  be  under 
it.  This  is  a  guillotine.  Now,  suppose  we  adjust  this 
pleasant  contrivance  so  that  it  will  work  automatically  and 
as  rapidly  as  we  desire.  Let  us  set  the  clock  so  that  the 
knife  will  drop  every  ten  seconds.  Then  every  minute 
there  are  six  blows  of  the  knife,  and  each  blow  represents 
what  is  said  to  be  a  needless  and  preventable  injury  or  sick- 
ness or  death  in  the  United  States.  If  you  read  an  hour 
the  knife  will  fall  three  hundred  and  sixty  times  before  you 
lay  down  your  book.  It  will  fall  three  hundred  and  sixty 
times  the  next  hour,  and  the  next.  It  will  fall  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty  times  while  you  are  eating  your  dinner.  It 
will  fall  three  hundred  and  sixty  times  while  you  are  play- 
ing on  the  floor  with  your  child.  It  will  not  cease  while 
you  sleep.  Through  the  long  night  and  the  next  day,  and 
through  all  the  nights  and  all  the  days  of  the  year  it  will 
keep  falling. 

These  are  not  the  victims  of  desperadoes  on  the  high- 
way. These  are  the  men  who  are  buried  in  the  mines, 
where  they  are  digging  coal  for  our  hearths.  They  are  the 


The  Religion  of  Inspired  Politics  31 

men  who  are  cast  into  fiery  furnaces  where  they  are  blast- 
ing our  steel.  They  are  the  men  whose  arms  are  caught  in 
the  looms  and  whose  blood  dyes  our  tapestries.  They  are 
the  men  who  slip  in  the  night  and  fall  beneath  the  wheels 
of  our  trains.  All  along  the  highways  of  our  industrial 
life  are  the  bruised  and  the  maimed,  the  dead  and  the 
dying. 

Government  is  not  yet  run  in  the  interest  of  the  life  and 
property  of  all.  It  is  not  in  league  with  robbers  who  kill 
men  on  the  highways.  But  it  is  used  for  the  defense  of  the 
privileges  of  the  few,  by  which  exploitation  is  legalized  and 
industry  is  rendered  more  fatal  than  war. 

It  takes  an  educated  imagination  to  make  a  Good  Sa- 
maritan to-day.  To  a  man  without  an  imagination  what 
does  it  mean  to  say  that  there  are  six  hundred  thousand 
preventable  deaths  a  year  in  the  United  States?  Perhaps 
it  would  mean  something  if  he  were  to  stand  forty  days 
and  forty  nights  watching  the  procession  pass  four  abreast. 
Perhaps  he  would  get,  from  that,  some  comprehension  of 
the  extent  of  this  waste.  Suppose  that  our  army  of  one 
hundred  thousand  men  were  massed  before  Mexico  City, 
and  suppose  this  entire  army  were  blown  up  and  wiped 
out  in  an  instant  by  the  explosion  of  mines.  Such  a  catas- 
trophe would  stun  the  whole  world.  The  loss  would  be 
unparalleled  in  the  history  of  human  slaughter.  It  would 
go  down  in  our  school  books  as  a  never-to-be-forgotten  day, 
the  bloodiest  in  the  annals  of  man.  But  suppose  we  are 
told  that  in  times  of  peace  there  is  an  industrial  army  three 
times  greater  than  this  that  is  destroyed  every  year.  This 
destruction  of  life  is  not  due  altogether  to  industrial  acci- 
dents. The  most  of  it  is  due  to  diseases  and  accidents 
which  are  the  by-products  of  poverty,  and  fall  mostly  upon 
the  poor. 

It  is  difficult  for  the  Good  Samaritan  to  comprehend  the 


32  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

enormity  of  this  waste.  It  is  still  more  difficult  for  him  to 
trace  the  connection  between  this  waste  and  the  poverty 
that  is  always  with  us. 

The  Federal  Census  of  1910  investigated  factories  em- 
ploying a  maximum  of  seven  million  hands.  This  report 
shows  that  at  certain  times  of  the  year  the  working  force  of 
these  establishments  was  reduced  by  almost  a  million  men. 
This  means  that  out  of  seven  million  American  working- 
men  nearly  a  million  were  out  of  employment  at  some 
time  during  the  year. 

If  a  man  is  paid  fifteen  dollars  on  Saturday  night,  and  is 
knocked  down  by  a  robber,  who  takes  his  pay  envelope 
away  from  him,  he  loses  the  fruits  of  one  week's  work. 
But  if  the  man's  employment  is  precarious  and  if  he  is  out 
of  work  part  of  the  time,  he  is  in  some  respects  as  badly  off 
as  if  he  had  been  working  and  had  been  robbed.  If  any 
Good  Samaritan  has  ever  been  told  Saturday  night  that  he 
need  not  come  back  to  work  Monday  morning,  and  if  he 
has  ever  gone  home  and  looked  into  the  frightened  eyes  of 
his  wife,  and  if  he  has  ever  had  little  ones  depending  upon 
him  and  has  had  to  go  forth  to  seek  a  chance  to  work,  not 
certain  of  finding  it;  if  any  Good  Samaritan  has  ever  had 
this  experience,  he  will  reflect  upon  what  a  tragedy  our 
industrial  life  is,  that  a  million  men  should  have  this  expe- 
rience every  year,  here  on  this  unused  continent  of  ours, 
where  monopoly  is  allowed  to  speculate  in  the  resources  of 
the  earth,  and  to  hold  these  resources  out  of  use,  while 
money  is  hoarded  in  the  banks  and  labor  stands  idle  in  the 
market  place. 

An  investigation  made  by  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment revealed  these  industrial  conditions  in  the  steel  works 
at  Bethlehem,  Pa.  Out  of  every  one  hundred  men  em- 
ployed in  this  plant,  twenty-nine  worked  seven  days  a 
week.  Forty-three  worked  some  Sundays  in  the  month. 


The  Religion  of  Inspired  Politics  33 

Fifty-one  worked  twelve  hours  a  day,  and  twenty-five 
worked  twelve  hours  a  day  and  seven  days  a  week.  But 
the  most  terrible  fact  of  all  is  that  46  per  cent  of  the  entire 
working  force  was  found  to  receive  less  than  two  dollars 
a  day. 

For  a  man  with  a  family  two  dollars  a  day  means  pov- 
erty, even  while  he  works.  When  an  accident  or  sickness 
come,  it  means  pauperism  or  else  it  means  vice  and  crime. 
He  who  knew  about  war  said  it  was  hell.  But  so  is  peace 
hell  on  two  dollars  a  day,  with  a  family  to  support  by  pre- 
carious employment,  working  six  or  seven  days  a  week  and 
twelve  hours  a  day. 

In  the  face  of  such  conditions  the  Good  Samaritan  will 
not  be  content  to  build  orphanages  and  almshouses.  He 
will  feel  the  need  of  something  more  effective  than  that. 
He  will  desire  a  government  that  will  guarantee  a  better 
chance  than  this  to  all  men.  These  conditions  exist  be- 
cause government  is  not  used  intelligently  to  protect  the 
lives  and  property  of  all.  On  the  contrary,  government  is 
still  used  to  grant  and  defend  special  privileges  to  the  few. 

We  have  in  our  penitentiaries  150,000  criminals.  We 
have  172,000  in  institutions  for  the  insane.  We  have 
155,000  feeble-minded  wards  of  the  state.  We  have 
85,000  in  institutions  for  the  deaf  and  64,000  in  institu- 
tions for  the  blind.  Yes,  and  we  have  five  million,  five 
hundred  thousand  illiterate  persons,  mostly  Americans. 
These  are  a  few  of  the  liabilities  of  the  nation.  These  are 
some  of  the  by-products  of  our  civilization. 

A  man  could  not  be  a  Good  Samaritan  in  dealing  with 
these  problems  without  having  some  instruction  in  the  first 
principles  of  political  economy.  He  who  understands  how 
government  has  interfered  with  freedom,  how  unneces- 
sarily it  curtails  the  opportunities  of  men,  and  to  what 
extent  the  laws  we  make  create  poverty — he  who  under- 


34  The  Religion   of  Revolution 

stands  this  will  see  the  tragic  helplessness  of  most  of  our 
charities.  He  will  see  that  poverty,  the  sink  of  our  social 
sins,  cannot  be  removed  save  by  economic  changes,  to  be 
effected  by  political  action.  The  abolition  of  poverty  is 
the  great  work  for  modern  Samaritans,  for  poverty  is  the 
root  of  many  other  evils. 

A  man  can  hardly  be  a  Good  Samaritan  to-day  who  is 
unable  to  look  upon  poverty  as  Shelley  looked  upon  it: 

Thou  knowest  what  a  thing  is  Poverty 
Among  the  fallen  on  evil  days. 
'Tis  Crime,  and  Fear,  and  Infamy, 
And  houseless  Want  in  frozen  ways 
Wandering  ungarmented,  and  Pain, 
And,  worse  than  all,  that  inward  stain, 
P'oul  Self-contempt,  which  drowns  in  sneers 
Youth's  starlight  smile,  and  makes  its  tears 
First  like  hot  gall,  then  dry  forever ! 

The  church  has  a  great  responsibility  in  a  republic  where 
church  members  are  sovereign  citizens.  The  greatest  need 
of  our  time  is  a  revival  of  a  politically  expressed  religion. 
Man's  greatest  need  is  not  faith  in  God.  He  believes  in 
God,  but  he  believes  with  a  heavy  heart.  What  he  needs 
is  the  faith  that  he  has  the  power  and  is  called  to  establish 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth.  If  he  had  that  faith,  his 
faith  in  God  would  become  a  living  force  in  his  life. 

Our  modern  men  and  women  are  not  happy.  They  feel 
a  great  lack  in  their  life.  They  do  not  know  what  that 
lack  is.  What  they  crave  is  religion,  a  religion  that  can 
satisfy  their  mind  and  fill  their  heart.  Their  life  needs  the 
kindling  power  of  a  great  enthusiasm.  They  are  eternal. 
They  were  meant  to  live  in  heroic  deeds.  What  they  need 
is  the  thrill  of  a  great  adventure.  There  surges  up  in  their 


The  Religion   of  Inspired  Politics  35 


souls  an  infinite  yearning.  They  must  have  more  than  the 
husks  of  existence.  Nothing  will  satisfy  them  but  the  di- 
vine fire  of  a  great  faith,  faith  that  they  now  have  the 
power  to  open  the  gates  of  heaven. 

The  soul  is  awakened  into  a  God-intoxicated  life  by  the 
overmastering  passion  for  a  great  truth,  or  by  the  stirring 
appeal  of  a  noble  cause.  You  are  citizens  with  ballots  in 
your  hands.  You  are  kings  of  the  richest  portion  of  the 
globe  in  this  age  of  transcendent  opportunity.  Why  not 
crown  your  days  with  glory?  Do  you  say  that  there  are 
mountains  of  ignorance  and  indifference  on  every  side  ?  I 
tell  you  that  faith  can  remove  those  mountains.  You  can 
win  in  your  day  a  new  and  wonderful  social  justice.  Be- 
lieve in  yourselves  and  in  your  divine  mission  to  do  this 
thing.  Believe  and  act.  The  joy  of  battle,  the  divineness 
of  the  deed,  will  be  to  you  the  birth  of  a  new  life. 

The  hour  calls  for  churches  filled  with  consecrated  citi- 
zens, men  and  women  who  strive  with  fervor  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  poverty  and  the  industrial  emancipation  of  the  race. 
The  hour  calls  for  a  church  militant.  We  need  Isaiahs  for 
preachers.  We  need  Savonarolas  to  arise  in  all  our  cities 
and  speak  with  tongues  and  hearts  aflame  the  mighty  mes- 
sage of  a  conquering  faith.  These  mountains  of  unbelief 
must  be  melted  away.  The  world's  ignorance  and  indiffer- 
ence must  be  riven  with  the  lightnings  of  God.  The  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  at  hand.  Your  eyes  and  mine,  if  we  will, 
shall  see  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord. 


A  VILLAGE  INFIDEL 

But  this  I  confess  unto  thee,  that  after  the  way  which 
they  call  heresy,  so  worship  I  the  God  of  my  fathers. — 
Paul. 

Heresy  is  the  youth  of  truth.  Orthodoxy  is  its  decrepit 
old  age.  Heresy  is  thought.  Orthodoxy  is  habit.  Heresy 
is  initiative.  Orthodoxy  is  inertia.  Heresy  is  that  which 
is  to  be.  Orthodoxy  is  that  which  is  and  is  passing  away. 

Orthodoxy  is  self-satisfied,  and  intolerant  of  heresy. 
Heresy  is  equally  self-satisfied,  and  intolerant  of  ortho- 
doxy. The  orthodox  should  think  better  of  the  heretics. 
The  heretics  should  think  better  of  the  orthodox.  For 
every  orthodoxy  was  once  a  heresy,  and  every  heresy  is 
fated  to  become  an  orthodoxy,  for  there  are  successive  gen- 
erations of  ideas  and  institutions,  just  as  there  are  succes- 
sive generations  of  men  to  tell  the  endless  tale  of  death  and 
life  renewed. 

All  our  states  were  founded  by  traitors.  All  our 
churches  were  founded  by  heretics.  The  patriotism  of  to- 
day glories  in  the  treasons  of  yesterday.  In  our  churches 
we  bend  the  knee  in  cushioned  prayer  to  saints  who  were 
once  dragged  before  the  tribunals  of  the  orthodox  and  con- 
demned and  hung  for  their  unbelief. 

Half  of  us  are  heretics.  The  other  half  worship  heretics. 
Not  even  the  orthodox  worship  the  orthodox.  Every 
orthodox  faith  is  founded  on  some  old-time  heresy.  The 
men  who  conform  to  the  old  never  win  immortal  palms. 
History  is  unanimous  in  giving  first  place  to  those  who  find 
new  paths,  who  think  new  thoughts,  who  build  new  insti- 
tutions, who  found  new  faiths. 


38  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

We  all  like  heretics,  only  some  of  us  like  them  alive 
and  others  like  them  dead. 

The  house  of  faith  in  which  I  once  dwelt  seems  to  me 
now  as  contracted  as  the  little  town  of  my  childhood.  I 
remember  the  road  that  led  from  the  farm  to  the  village  a 
mile  away.  It  is  all  gold  and  scarlet  now,  but  the  memory 
of  it  will  always  be  green.  How  often  did  some  unkind 
fate  compel  me,  in  those  barefoot  days,  to  travel  that  road 
alone  and  in  the  dark.  It  went  down  hill,  skirted  a  little 
lake,  went  through  the  woods,  past  a  haystack,  the  nest  of 
tramps,  past  the  haunted  house  on  the  edge  of  the  marsh, 
where  the  frogs  croaked  maliciously  on  a  summer's  night, 
and  the  fireflies  kept  up  a  witch's  dance,  until  I  could  hear 
the  ghosts  walking  in  the  grass,  and  knew  that  they  must 
hear  me  breathe.  To  escape  them,  however,  was  only  half 
the  battle,  as  I  had  still  to  pass  the  hut  of  the  old  infidel, 
the  shunned  of  all  the  town.  Worse  than  tramps,  worse 
than  ghosts,  was  the  fear  of  that  evil  hut  whose  solitary 
occupant  was  shrouded  in  a  mystery  that  left  unchallenged 
all  our  dread  imaginings.  But  when  I  had  run  the  whole 
gamut  of  my  childish  fears,  I  found  deliverance  in  the 
town.  Ah,  that  town,  with  its  windmill  and  watering- 
trough,  and  its  lofty  spire,  and  its  wonderful  stores! 

One  Sunday  long  since  I  passed  that  way  again.  Alas, 
the  disillusionment!  What  a  mean,  melancholy  little 
place.  Distances  had  shrunk  to  half.  The  stores  had 
dwindled  away.  The  lazy  little  town  was  as  stagnant  as 
the  scum-covered  pond,  whose  mournful  cricket-song  arose 
in  the  deserted  streets.  My  childhood  memory  was  like  a 
sensitive  plant;  touched  by  the  hand  of  time,  it  had  shriv- 
eled up  and  withered  away. 

Where  was  the  lofty  spire?  Had  they  taken  it  down? 
What  had  they  done  to  it?  Nothing  at  all,  I  was  assured. 
That  wretched  little  belfry  is  what  my  childish  fancy  had 


A   Village  Infidel  39 

lifted  to  the  skies.  But  more  shrunken  than  the  steeple,, 
more  musty  than  the  aisles,  more  stark  and  stiff  than  the 
benches  of  that  old  meeting-house,  was  the  sermon  that  I 
heard  that  Sabbath  day. 

Haunting  memories  of  long  ago.  Had  things  so 
changed?  No;  it  was  I  who  had  changed. 

Then  I  thought  of  the  old  infidel.  Possibly  his  infidel- 
ity consisted  in  seeing  the  church  as  I  had  come  to  see  it, 
and  in  measuring  the  sermon  as  I  could  measure  it  after 
the  lapse  of  years.  Possibly  his  unbelief  was  only  a  larger 
faith  than  had  been  dreamed  of  in  the  theology  of  that 
little  town. 

I  sought  out  the  old  hut.  But  the  gate  was  gone.  The 
path  was  all  grown  to  weeds.  The  man  had  been  dead, 
they  said,  these  many  years.  Then  I  sat  down  by  the  road- 
side, and  viewed  the  sand  hills  that  had  so  grudgingly  re- 
warded the  labor  of  my  people.  I  saw  the  marsh  where  I 
had  gathered  huckleberries,  and  the  road  emerging  from 
the  woods  where  I  had  halted  between  my  dread  of  the 
ghosts  and  my  fear  of  the  infidel. 

Who  has  not  known  this  mournful  enchantment  of 
childhood  scenes?  Who  has  not  felt  in  his  heart  this  para- 
doxical longing  for  something  lost  that  one  would  not  have 
back,  this  weird  charm  of  the  old  days  that  are  at  once  so 
dear  and  yet  so  desolate? 

But,  lo !  the  mists  I  saw  were  not  alone  in  my  eyes ;  they 
were  on  the  marsh,  too,  and  the  outlines  of  that  picture 
were  fading  away  into  the  night.  So  I  arose,  took  reluc- 
tant leave  of  the  infidel's  hut,  and  left  the  town. 

Sleep  on,  little  town ;  there  is  no  infidel  there  any  more 
to  disturb  your  faith ;  but  I  fear  there  would  be  an  infidel 
there  if  I  remained.  So,  farewell. 

The  fear  of  the  child  becomes  the  faith  of  the  man.  A 
faith  that  does  not  grow  becomes  the  infidelity  of  a  grow- 


40  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

ing  world.  Religion  has  nothing  to  fear  from  the  truth. 
Honest  thinking  never  led  men  into  despair.  Open  minds 
are  rewarded  with  a  larger  faith. 

Can  we  not  say  with  Whitman,  "Ah,  more  than  any 
priest,  O  Soul,  we,  too,  believe  in  God ;  but  with  the  mys- 
tery of  God  we  dare  not  dally." 

Our  God  has  as  many  different  names  as  there  are  lan- 
guages among  men.  Every  tear  that  is  shed  in  pity  for  the 
race  is  a  part  of  the  great  atonement ;  and  in  every  heroic 
act  God  comes  down  in  the  form  of  man  to  redeem  the 
world.  Calvary  is  the  symbol  of  that  undying  love  which 
every  age  has  witnessed ;  and  Christ  is  one  of  many  who 
have  proclaimed,  on  uplifted  cross,  the  truth  of  heaven. 

It  is  not  alone  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  that  we  read  of  God. 
He  has  given  us  bibles  without  number.  He  has  sent  us 
countless  revelations  of  Himself.  The  widening  horizon 
of  the  human  mind,  the  increasing  mercy  of  the  human 
heart,  the  growing  justice  of  human  society,  the  wonders 
of  the  microscope,  the  miracles  of  the  heavens,  the  poet's 
song,  the  prophet's  vision,  the  patriot's  sacrifice,  the  prayers 
and  aspirations  and  bibles  of  all  races  of  men — these  are 
so  many  flashes  of  the  light  of  God ;  assurances  accumulat- 
ing with  the  centuries,  that  the  eternal  God  is  our  refuge, 
and  underneath  us  are  the  everlasting  arms. 

God  did  not  break,  but  once,  the  silence  of  the  centuries 
to  speak  to  some  shepherds  in  Palestine.  The  world  is 
vocal  with  His  presence.  His  word  is  written  on  the 
rocks.  His  judgments  are  recorded  on  the  walls  of  buried 
cities.  The  violets  raise  altars  to  His  name,  and  the  morn- 
ing and  the  evening  star  proclaim  His  law. 


THE  ABOLITION  OF  POVERTY 


Howbeit,  there  shall  be  no  poor  with  thee  ...  if  only 
thou  diligently  hearken  unto  the  voice  of  Jehovah  thy  God. 
— Deuteronomy. 


When  the  highest  wage  that  a  sober  and  industrious  man 
can  earn  is  insufficient  to  protect  the  physical,  mental  and 
moral  well-being  of  his  family,  he  and  his  family  may  be 
said  to  be  the  victims  of  poverty. 

In  his  study  of  poverty,  Professor  J.  H.  Hollander,  of 
Pennsylvania  University,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  fully 
one-half  of  the  adult  males  engaged  in  gainful  occupations 
in  the  United  States  are  earning  less  than  $626  a  year. 

A  person  without  anyone  to  care  for  but  himself  would 
find  this  rate  of  wages  sufficient  to  keep  him  above  the 
poverty  line. 

But  adult  males  should  be  expected  to  assume  the  re- 
sponsibility of  a  family,  yet,  even  in  America,  there  are 
millions  of  husbands  and  fathers  whose  wage  is  insufficient 
to  properly  care  for  a  family. 

The  man  who  has  an  inadequate  wage  is  fortunate  com- 
pared to  him  who  has  no  wage  at  all.  The  problem  of  low 
wages  is  less  serious  than  the  problem  of  unemployment. 

The  report  of  the  Commission  on  Industrial  Relations 
puts  the  number  of  unemployed,  even  in  prosperous  years, 
at  several  times  the  size  of  the  standing  army  of  the  United 
States;  and  in  times  of  depression,  this  army  of  unused 
laborers  is  said  to  number  from  two  to  three  millions. 

These  hordes  of  jobless  men  have  been   fittingly  de- 


42  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

scribed  as  the  shifting  sands  beneath  the  state.  If  this 
labor  could  be  fully  utilized,  the  extra  wealth  produced 
probably  would  more  than  equal  the  cost  to  England  of 
the  European  war.  To  support  this  army  of  unemployed, 
we  pay  not  only  the  cost  in  charity  of  maintaining  it,  and 
the  cost  of  repressing  the  crimes  which  flow  from  its  des- 
peration, but  we  pay — that  is,  we  lose — all  the  wealth 
which  its  wasted  labor  might  produce. 

The  heavy  toll  that  poverty  takes  cannot  be  vivified  by 
statistics.  Consider  the  grim  reality  behind  these  figures 
reported  by  the  Immigration  Commission  of  Congress. 
The  Commission  investigated  over  six  hundred  thousand 
employees  in  mining  and  manufacturing  industries.  The 
report  made  in  1909  revealed  the  living  conditions  of 
15,726  families.  A  third  of  these  families  had  less  than 
$500  a  year  on  which  to  live.  The  average  for  all  was 
less  than  fourteen  dollars  a  week.  This  was  not  the 
average  for  each  worker,  but  the  average  aggregate  in- 
come per  family.  Only  one-fourth  of  the  fathers  of  these 
families  earned  sufficient,  without  the  wages  of  wife  or 
children,  to  provide  the  minimum  support  of  $700  a  year. 
One-third  of  the  families  had  to  take  in  boarders.  It 
was  a  rare  exception  when  any  person  in  these  families 
had  a  sleeping- room  to  himself.  In  37  per  cent  of  them 
there  were  three  and  more  sleeping  to  a  room;  in  15  per 
cent  of  the  cases  there  were  four  and  more  to  a  room. 

Think  of  the  difficulty  of  preserving  health  and  morality 
under  such  conditions,  or  in  maintaining  anything  worthy 
to  be  called  a  home. 

The  Federal  Children's  Bureau  found  in  Johnstown, 
Pennsylvania,  that  babies  whose  fathers  earned  less  than 
$10  a  week  died  during  the  first  year  at  the  rate  of  256  per 
1,000.  But  infant  mortality  was  reduced  to  84  per  1,000 
in  the  case  of  fathers  receiving  $25  or  more  a  week.  The 


The  Abolition  of  Poverty  43 

little  white  hearse  calls  three  times  as  often  at  the  doors  of 
the  very  poor. 

These  facts  are  set  forth  on  page  12  of  the  Manly  Re- 
port on  Industrial  Relations.  Here  also  is  found  the  state- 
ment that  only  one-third  of  the  children  in  our  public 
schools  complete  the  grammar  school,  and  only  one-tenth 
finish  the  high  school.  The  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics 
found,  in  four  industrial  towns  investigated,  that  75  per 
cent  of  the  children  leave  school  before  reaching  the 
seventh  grade.  This  is  hardly  the  way  to  buttress  the 
foundations  of  the  Republic. 

In  considering  the  depredations  of  poverty,  the  direct 
relation  between  poverty  and  crime  should  not  be  over- 
looked. On  page  13  of  the  Manly  report,  the  Chicago 
Commission  on  Crime  is  quoted  as  follows: 

Unsanitary  housing  and  working  conditions,  unem- 
ployment, wages  inadequate  to  maintain  a  human 
standard  of  living,  inevitably  produce  the  crushed  or 
distorted  bodies  and  minds  from  which  the  army  of 
crime  is  recruited. 

If  infant  mortality  among  the  poor  is  three  times  greater 
than  the  average  for  all  classes,  it  is  safe  to  assume  that 
two-thirds  of  the  sickness  in  society  is  due  to  poverty.  Pro- 
fessor Irving  Fisher  has  estimated  that  the  number  of  per- 
sons disabled  in  America  in  any  one  day  in  the  year  on  ac- 
count of  injury  or  sickness  is  three  million.  He  estimates 
that  the  18,000,000  American  wage  earners  suffer  a  wage 
loss  on  account  of  sickness  of  $500,000,000  a  year,  and  that 
their  medicine  bill  is  $486,000,000  a  year,  which  brings 
their  annual  loss  to  about  a  billion  dollars,  without  allow- 
ing anything  for  the  doctors.  The  total  cost  to  American 
laborers  of  sickness  and  death  is  estimated  at  three  billions 


44  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

a  year.  This  exceeds  the  total  cost  of  all  government  for 
all  purposes  in  the  United  States.  It  is  probably  conserva- 
tive to  say  that  one-half  or  two-thirds  of  this  cost  is  due  to 
poverty,  or  to  the  ignorance  which  poverty  breeds. 

Among  all  the  victims  of  poverty  not  the  least  pitiable 
are  the  aged  poor.  There  are  in  the  United  States  1,250,- 
ooo  former  wage-earners  of  sixty-five  years  of  age  and  over 
who  are  receiving  public  or  private  charity.  Mr.  L.  W. 
Squier,  in  his  Old  Age  Dependency,  says  that  our  worn- 
out  army  of  indigents  is  the  largest  standing  army  in  the 
world,  and  that  it  costs  two  dollars  a  year  for  each  man, 
woman  and  child  in  the  nation. 

Any  complete  survey  of  the  cost  of  poverty  would  have 
to  include  an  investigation  of  the  amount  spent  annually 
in  charity. 

In  Cincinnati  there  are  a  hundred  different  charitable 
institutions.  Nineteen  of  these  combined  in  what  is  known 
as  a  Council  of  Social  Agencies,  and  these  alone  disburse 
$300,000  a  year.  It  would  be  staggering,  no  doubt,  if  it 
were  possible,  to  put  in  one  pile  of  figures  all  the  wealth  in 
America  that  is  spent  for  the  relief  of  poverty. 

The  greatest  task  nowr  for  the  genius  of  man  is  to  elimi- 
nate the  waste  of  poverty.  A  New  York  millionaire 
served  last  winter  on  a  committee  to  assist  the  unemployed. 
Direct  contact  with  the  problem  appalled  him.  The  in- 
sanity of  the  system  was  what  struck  his  practical  mind. 
"Anyone  approaching  the  earth  in  an  airship,"  said  he, 
"looking  down  on  our  great,  broad  fields  and  mines,  and 
seeing  our  comparatively  small  population,  with  our  great 
armies  of  unemployed,  would  think  we  were  living  in  a 
lunatic  asylum." 

On  page  twenty-eight  of  the  Manly  report  the  conclu- 
sion is  reached  that  two  million  people  own  20  per  cent 
more  of  the  nation's  wealth  than  all  the  other  ninety  mil- 


The  Abolition  of  Poverty  45 

lions.    In  Cincinnati  there  is  one  person  who  has  an  income 
from  inherited  properties  of  $900,000  a  year. 

Every  such  income  is  earned,  but  usually  it  is  not  earned 
by  the  person  who  gets  it.  These  incomes  represent  the 
unpaid  wages  of  labor.  They  should  remain  in  the  hands 
of  the  actual  producers.  These  incomes,  if  spent  to  clothe 
and  feed  the  children  of  those  who  earn  them,  would  find 
their  way  into  the  channels  of  trade  to  swell  the  volume  of 
business  and  furnish  employment  for  more  labor.  But 
much  is  squandered  upon  vanities  which  degrade  the  rich 
and  embitter  the  poor.  Mostly,  however,  these  surpluses 
of  unearned  wealth  are  invested  in  income-producing  prop- 
erty. Government  bonds  and  securities  of  public-utility 
and  large  industrial  corporations  attract  these  investors. 
But  as  the  concentration  of  wealth  advances,  the  tendency 
increases  to  invest  these  surpluses  in  landed  estates,  in 
farms  and  mineral  land,  and  in  city  real  estate.  This  does 
several  things.  It  increases  the  price  of  land,  and  thereby 
hastens  the  disinheritance  of  the  people.  It  increases  the 
size  of  estates.  The  homesteader  gives  way  to  the  landed 
proprietor.  Farm  tenantry  spreads  like  a  blight.  The 
Commission  on  Industrial  Relations  found  that  the  per- 
centage of  tenants  in  Texas  had  nearly  doubled  in  thirty 
years.  Tenant  farming  is  wasteful  of  the  nation's  re- 
sources. It  is  also  destructive  of  popular  freedom.  The 
master  of  the  land  becomes  master  of  the  men.  Great 
estates,  bought  as  a  safe  way  of  keeping  wealth,  or  on 
speculation,  are  held  idle  or  used  to  poor  advantage.  The 
object  of  our  homestead  laws  was  to  build  a  nation  of 
home  owners  and  independent  farmers.  These  laws  have 
been  defeated.  Conditions  are  at  work  which  produced 
the  desolation  of  Italy.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  these  economic  conditions  will  bear  their  evil  fruit 
here  far  more  swiftly  than  they  did  in  ancient  Rome. 


46  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

Already  we  seem  crowded  and  we  complain  of  congestion 
and  overpopulation,  when  we  have  seven  states  of  the 
Union  big  enough  to  hold  all  of  our  own  population  and 
all  of  China's,  without  being  more  crowded  than  the  pres- 
ent population  of  Rhode  Island.  Secretary  Franklin  R. 
JLane  says: 

We  haven't  touched  the  resources  of  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  continent,  and  that  one-third  is  producing 
not  more  than  one-third  of  its  possible  yield.  East  of 
the  Mississippi  one-half  of  the  arable  land  is  absolute- 
ly uncultivated  to-day,  and  the  other  half  produces 
about  50  per  cent  of  what  ought  to  be  its  normal  yield. 

There  are  resources  enough  and  men  enough.  Capital 
could  be  furnished  by  the  government,  on  easy  terms,  to 
make  every  idle  man  a  producer.  Government  might  well 
pay  the  unemployed,  if  need  be,  to  take  technical  courses 
and  qualify  for  agriculture  or  other  productive  industry. 
Poverty  is  inexcusable  in  a  nation  with  vast  untouched 
resources.  If  all  land  were  taxed  in  proportion  to  its  loca- 
tion value,  and  if  this  tax  were  made  heavy  enough  so  that 
all  improvements  and  all  industry  could  be  untaxed,  the 
released  acres  would  take  the  unemployed  as  a  sponge 
takes  water.  Exempt  industry  from  taxation,  and  make 
the  land  value  tax  heavy  enough  to  compel  every  owner  of 
land  to  put  it  to  good  use.  This  would  probably  so  in- 
crease the  profits  of  business,  raise  wages,  and  stimulate 
production,  that  government  loans  of  capital  or  other  such 
measures  would  be  unnecessary. 

Meanwhile,  however,  one-third,  even  of  our  people,  are 
living  below  the  line  of  reasonable  comfort,  and  millions 
are  in  poverty.  Poverty  tortures  a  multitude  every  day 
-on  beds  of  sickness.  It  strikes  down  with  death  before 


The  Abolition  of  Poverty  47 

their  time  the  fathers  of  little  children.  Poverty  leaves 
the  mothers  of  the  poor,  comfortless,  weeping  like  Rachel, 
for  their  children  because  they  are  not.  Poverty  arrests 
the  growth  of  the  young.  It  stunts  their  minds.  It 
quickly  effaces  the  bloom  of  youth.  It  makes  an  early  end 
of  hope,  and  ambition,  and  the  joy  of  life.  Poverty 
spawns  an  accursed  brood  of  imbeciles.  It  raises  a  sickly, 
scurvy  breed,  to  fall  a  charge  to  charity,  to  propagate 
their  leprous  kind,  to  taint  the  blood  and  undermine  the 
constitution  of  the  race.  Poverty  dishonors  grey  hairs.  It 
leaves  the  aged  unloved,  alone  and  desolate.  Poverty 
breaks  its  victims  at  the  wheel  of  labor,  and  leaves  them, 
vile  and  loathsome,  to  shuffle  along  the  street,  or  to  wait  in 
festering  tenements  for  death  to  complete  their  corruption. 
Poverty  is  the  school  of  crime.  It  is  a  bed  of  pain.  It  is 
jail  and  gallows  for  the  unhappy  victims  of  social  re- 
pression and  neglect.  Poverty  is  the  mother  of  all  the 
miseries  of  men.  Ignorance  and  greed  are  her  terrible 
daughters.  Poverty  is  the  primal  tragedy  of  the  race.  It 
is  the  needless  crucifixion  and  martyrdom  of  the  people. 

In  times  past  famine  might  have  been  caused  by  the 
pestilence.  A  crop  failure  might  have  reduced  a  popula- 
tion to  starvation.  But  in  modern  life  sanitation  has  con- 
quered the  pestilence,  and  trade  and  transportation  have 
discounted  the  caprices  of  nature.  Once  education  was 
looked  to  as  a  panacea.  Now  illiteracy  has  been  practically 
stamped  out,  yet  poverty  remains.  We  have  political 
equality,  education,  and  power  to  produce  wealth  in  excess 
of  our  needs.  Nevertheless,  in  the  financial  capital  of  the 
world  there  are  a  million  paupers.  Just  now  many  are 
turning  to  another  panacea.  It  is  declared  that  intemper- 
ance is  the  cause  of  poverty,  and  that  Prohibition  is  the 
cure. 

Why  has  the  world  been  disappointed  with  the  results 


48  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

of  political  democracy  ?  Why  has  education  not  abolished 
poverty?  Why  have  modern  inventions  failed?  To 
understand  this  is  to  understand  why  Prohibition  also 
must  fail. 

Suppose  we  try  to  draw  a  picture  of  our  economic  so- 
ciety at  work. 

Here,  let  us  say,  is  a  field  where  twenty  men  are  em- 
ployed. For  the  purpose  of  the  illustration,  we  must 
assume  that  there  is  no  other  field  to  which  these  men  may 
go.  In  that  case,  the  owner,  having  no  competition  from 
other  landlords,  can,  as  long  as  they  respect  his  right  of 
absolute  property  in  the  field,  compel  the  laborers  to  work 
for  him  for  the  bare  necessities  of  life.  He  could,  in  fact, 
starve  them  to  death.  But  an  attempt  to  do  so  would  stir 
even  the  most  stupid  to  rebellion.  Besides,  he  could  not 
make  any  profit  out  of  a  dead  man.  It  is  to  his  economic 
interest  to  permit  them  to  live. 

Let  us  say  that  their  implements  are  of  the  crudest  sort. 
They  hitch  each  other  to  their  wooden  plows ;  they  gather 
the  grain  with  their  hands  and  thresh  it  with  their  feet. 
Even  with  favorable  weather  these  men  produce  so  little 
that  the  owner  cannot  exact  much  from  them.  What  they 
are  permitted  to  keep  we  call  wages.  What  the  owner 
can  exact  we  call  rent.  And  the  value  of  the  field  to  the 
owner  is  in  proportion  to  the  rent  he  receives.  If  he  man- 
ages to  get  for  the  ownership  of  the  field  a  hundred  dollars 
worth  of  produce  a  year,  then,  capitalizing  that  rent  at  5 
per  cent,  we  would  say  that  the  field  is  worth  $2,000. 

Suppose,  now,  that  these  twenty  men  begin  to  argue 
that  they  are  poor  because  their  tools  are  crude,  and  to  im- 
prove their  condition  they  invent  steam-ploughs  and  har- 
vesters and  threshing-machines. 

By  these  inventions  it  is  possible  for  ten  men  to  work  all 
the  land,  and  still  produce  many  times  as  much  as  the 


The  Abolition  of  Poverty  49 

twenty  produced  in  the  old  way.  Therefore  the  ten  un- 
necessary men  are  discharged.  Since  there  is  no  other  field 
where  they  are  wanted,  they  fall  into  the  bread  line.  The 
owner  of  the  field  is  too  civilized  to  kill  them.  Therefore 
he  allows  them  to  slowly  starve  to  death. 

But  what  about  the  ten  who  remain  at  work  ?  If  they, 
with  their  machines,  produce  more  than  was  formerly 
produced  by  the  twenty,  will  they  have  their  wages  raised 
proportionately?  Of  course  not.  The  ten  men  in  the 
bread  line  want  their  jobs.  These  hungry  men  are  willing 
and  eager  to  work  for  the  same  old  starvation  wrage. 
Therefore  the  wages  of  those  who  keep  their  jobs  cannot 
rise  much  above  the  former  level.  The  owner  has  to  allow 
wages  enough  to  feed  but  ten  men  now,  instead  of  twenty, 
and  he  can  keep  as  rent,  not  only  what  would  have  been 
required  by  the  displaced  laborers,  but  he  can  take  the  dif- 
ference between  what  the  other  ten  men  need  and  what 
they  produce. 

Let  us  say  that  he  can  now  take  a  thousand  dollars 
worth  of  produce  a  year.  Therefore  his  field  is  worth 
$20,000.  The  productive  power  of  labor  has  increased, 
but  wages  have  not  gone  up,  certainly  not  in  proportion. 
The  surplus  is  taken  in  the  form  of  rent,  and  is  expressed 
in  terms  of  increased  land  values. 

But  the  ten  workingmen  do  not  understand  why,  since 
they  can  produce  more  grain,  their  wages  do  not  rise  in 
proportion.  They  think  it  is  because  the  ten  idle  men 
stand  ready  to  take  their  jobs.  So  they  form  a  union.  The 
union  cannot  make  jobs  for  the  idle  men.  But  the  men 
who  are  in  the  union  and  are  employed,  preach  to  the  idle 
men  that  it  is  shameful  to  be  a  scab,  and  that  since  they 
have  no  jobs  and  are  going  to  starve  to  death  anyway,  they 
ought  to  go  off  and  die  quietly,  and  not  underbid  the  men 
who  have  jobs,  when  they  strike  for  an  increase  in  wages. 


50  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

The  owner  of  the  field  is  down  on  the  union  as  a  matter 
of  course.  He  has  turned  the  ten  idle  men  out  to  die,, 
But  when  the  union  tries  to  prevent  any  of  his  starvelings 
from  coming  back  and  taking  the  place  of  the  strikers,  the 
owner  is  indignant.  Of  course,  he  is  not  concerned  about 
himself.  What  he  is  concerned  about  is  the  sacred  God- 
given  right  of  these  idle  men  to  work  where  they  please. 
That  is  the  way  he  puts  it. 

Well,  the  owner  of  the  field  and  the  union  go  on  fight- 
ing. Nothing  very  much  comes  of  the  fight.  Wages  are 
prevented  from  going  quite  as  low  as  they  otherwise  would. 
But  no  new  jobs  are  made,  and  the  problem  of  unemploy- 
ment remains  unsolved,  and  the  owner  of  the  field  grows 
richer  and  poverty  becomes  the  fixed  condition  of  many. 

As  the  men  come  to  see  that  they  make  little  headway 
with  their  union,  and  that  increased  prices  eat  up  the 
shabby  increase  in  wages  that  they  are  able  to  wring  from 
the  owner,  they  begin  to  wonder  why  this  is  so,  and  they 
give  much  thought  to  the  matter. 

While  in  this  mood  an  evangelist  comes  among  them 
and  preaches  a  temperance  crusade.  He  tells  them  that 
the  ten  idle  men  must  have  been  drunkards,  or  they  would 
not  have  lost  their  jobs.  He  tells  the  men  who  have  jobs 
that  the  reason  their  wages  are  low  is  that  they  spend  so 
much  of  their  money  for  drink.  The  men  are  all  con- 
verted. They  all  become  teetotalers.  The  result  is  mar- 
velous. It  does  just  what  the  evangelist  said  it  would.  It 
perceptibly  increases  the  efficiency  of.  these  men.  They 
are  always  on  hand  Monday  morning.  No  more  days  lost 
now.  They  can  lift  more,  endure  more  exposure;  in  fact, 
the  sobering  up  of  these  ten  men  so  increased  their  pro- 
ductive power  that  now  eight  men  are  able  to  do  all  the 
work,  and  the  owner  is  able  to  save  the  wages  of  two  more 
of  his  hands.  Of  course,  the  owner  does  not  give  the  eight 


The  Abolition  of  Poverty  51 

laborers  who  remain  the  wages  of  the  other  two.  He  keeps 
these  wages.  They  go  to  swell  his  rent.  The  eight  labor- 
ers doubtless  are  better  off,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  get 
precious  little  out  of  their  sobriety  in  the  way  of  higher 
wages.  But  the  two  who  are  discharged  sink  into  the 
bread  line  in  spite  of  their  sobriety.  Since  Prohibition  is 
enforced  they  cannot  relapse  into  drunkenness.  But  desti- 
tution with  sobriety  may  be  quite  as  merciless  a  form  of 
misery  as  poverty  with  drunkenness,  for  a  man  would  be 
denied  even  the  consolation  of  the  Scripture  which  said, 
"Let  him  drink  and  forget  his  poverty,  and  remember  his 
misery  no  more." 

This  is  the  great  paradox.  Just  as  the  owner  of  the 
field  can  appropriate,  in  increased  rents,  the  lion's  share  of 
the  products  of  machine-assisted  labor,  so  even  sobriety 
will  increase  rents  more  than  it  will  increase  wages. 
Neither  by  the  invention  of  more  machines,  nor  by  Prohi- 
bition, nor  by  any  other  method  of  increasing  the  efficiency 
of  labor  can  poverty  be  abolished,  for  we  have  an  economic 
system  which  enables  the  owners  of  the  earth  to  absorb, 
in  the  form  of  increased  rents,  the  advantages  of  moral  as 
well  as  material  progress.  Prohibition  may  improve  the 
moral  character  of  men,  but  it  cannot  touch  the  economic 
causes  of  poverty. 

There  is  just  as  much  chance  to  repeal  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation by  an  ordinance  of  the  Cincinnati  City  Council  as 
to  abolish  poverty  by  a  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic. 

The  first  rational  step  for  the  abolition  of  poverty 
would  be  to  charge  each  owner  of  a  parcel  of  land  five 
dollars  a  year  for  every  hundred  dollars  worth  of  its  value, 
and  to  stop  taxing  him  for  using  the  land.  In  the  case  of 
a  man  who  is  making  a  good  use  of  his  land,  this  would  be 
no  burden.  It  would,  in  fact,  amount  to  a  great  reduc- 
tion of  his  present  tax  bill.  To-day,  a  man  with  a  $500 


52  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

lot  and  a  $2,500  house,  pays  a  tax,  let  us  say,  of  one  and 
one-half  per  cent  on  a  valuation  of  $3,000,  or  $45  a  year. 
If  he  paid  nothing  on  his  house,  and  5  per  cent  on  the 
value  of  his  lot,  his  tax  would  be  $25  and  his  tax  bill 
would  be  reduced  $20  a  year.  But  what  about  the  man 
who  is  holding  a  $500  lot  idle?  Whereas  now  he  pays 
$7.50,  he  would  pay  $25.  What  would  that  do?  It 
would  make  every  parcel  of  land  free  which  the  owner 
could  not  put  to  profitable  use.  There  would  be  enough 
free  land  east  of  the  Misissippi  to  furnish  homes  for  all 
the  unemployed  in  all  the  United  States. 

The  land  value  tax  would  not  operate  as  a  fine  upon 
industry,  but  as  a  spur  to  industry,  and  a  fine  for  holding 
land  out  of  use  or  for  improperly  using  it.  Moreover,  ad- 
vancements in  science  and  the  arts  and  in  education  and 
morals,  the  benefits  of  which  hitherto  have  been  absorbed 
by  the  ever-increasig  ground  rents  of  private  owners, 
would  increase  the  social  wealth,  the  revenues  of  the  state, 
the  property  of  all,  and  could  be  used  to  provide  free  of 
charge  greatly  extended  functions  and  services  of  govern- 
ment, or  the  state  could  declare  dividends  out  of  this  fund, 
after  deducting  needed  revenues,  and  distribute  each  year 
to  each  man,  woman  and  child  his  equal  share  of  the  net 
social  income.  Preposterous,  you  say?  Yet  the  United 
States  government  is  actually  doing  this  very  thing,  not  for 
us,  to  be  sure,  but  for  the  Osage  Indians.  It  is  one  of  the 
ironies  of  history  that  the  United  States  government,  in 
the  capacity  of  administrator  of  the  inalienable  lands  of 
these  Indians,  collects  rents  and  royalties,  and  is  now  de- 
claring an  annual  dividend  of  $600  for  each  man,  woman 
and  child  in  the  tribe.  Osage  Indian  families  have  an  in- 
come from  ground  rents  of  $3,000  a  year.  There  are  mil- 
lions of  American  workingmen  who  earn  less  by  a  year's 
labor  than  the  United  States  government  pays  in  dividends 


The  Abolition   of  Poverty  53 

each  year  to  Osage  Indian  babies.  The  red  man  waited 
long  for  his  vengeance.  But  he  has  it  at  last. 

To  go  back  a  moment  to  the  owner  of  the  field  and  his 
twenty  serfs.  Why  was  he  able  to  exact  of  them  all  except 
that  which  they  required  to  keep  them  alive  ?  Why  could 
he  absorb  in  increasing  rents  all,  or  about  all,  the  extra 
wealth  which  they,  by  their  invention,  and  intelligence, 
and  sobriety,  could  produce? 

The  reason  was  because  there  was  no  other  field  to 
which  they  could  go.  The  illustration  is  defective  at  that 
point.  Under  actual  conditions,  there  is  no  such  absolute 
serfdom,  for  there  is  competition  between  land-owners, 
and  some  laborers  are  always  escaping,  even  now,  to  land 
that  is  free.  But  the  free  land  that  is  left  is  fit  only  to 
starve  on.  The  imposition  of  a  land-value  tax,  approach- 
ing the  full  ground  rent,  would  open  up  free  land  in  the 
State  of  Ohio,  and  a  man  would  not  have  to  betake  himself 
to  the  wilderness  of  Saskatchewan.  With  free  land,  or 
with  the  right  of  access  to  land  without  the  outlay  of  any 
capital  to  buy  it,  and  without  the  payment  of  taxes  upon 
improvements,  but  only  the  ground  rent,  why  would  any 
man  work  for  another  at  starvation  wages?  It  may  be 
said  that  it  takes  capital  to  use  land.  True.  With  three 
or  four  billions  annually  of  ground  rents  going  into  private 
hands,  those  private  persons  are  able  easily  to  monopolize 
capital.  If  the  government  took  the  ground  rent,  it  could 
command  this  capital.  It  would  have  capital  to  loan  on 
easy  terms.  If  it  were  desirable,  these  land  value  revenues 
might  be  supplemented  by  drastic  inheritance  taxes.  If  a 
man  leaves  a  thirty-story  office  building  to  his  son,  it  is  on 
permission  of  the  state.  After  the  man  is  dead  he  has  no 
natural  power  of  control  over  the  property. 

The  inheritance  tax  could  legitimately  be  used,  if  neces- 
sary, to  equalize  the  right  of  access  to  land  and  capital.  It 


54  The  Religion   of  Revolution 

is  doubtful  if  government  should  ever  try  to  equalize  the 
earning  power  of  individuals.  That  the  government 
should  take  some  of  the  earnings  of  one  man  and  give  to 
another  would  seem  contrary  to  natural  justice.  But  it  is 
incontestable  that  one  man  should  have  access  to  the  earth 
on  equal  terms  with  every  other,  and  it  seems  equally  in- 
contestable that  one  man  has  as  good  a  right  as  any  other 
man  to  inherited  capital.  It  would  be  right  for  the  gov- 
ernment not  only  to  guarantee  free  land,  but  also  to  pro- 
vide capital  to  private  citizens  out  of  the  proceeds  of  land 
value  or  inheritance  taxes.  Even  so,  not  all  the  men  would 
leave  the  factories  and  become  farmers  or  otherwise  employ 
themselves  on  the  land.  But  with  free  land,  not  at  the 
other  side  of  the  continent,  but  immediately  at  hand,  and 
with  available  capital,  many  men  would  go,  and  the  wages 
of  the  employees  who  remained  would  rise  to  the  level  of 
the  earnings  of  those  who  went.  Indeed,  employees  would 
become  so  free  that  it  is  difficult  to  think  that  the  present 
chain-gang  methods  would  long  endure.  Probably  a  quiet 
revolution  would  take  place  and  co-operative  shops,  demo- 
cratically managed,  would  rapidly  displace  the  present 
autocratic  organization  of  industry. 

It  was  in  1827  that  the  Secretary  of  the  United  States 
Treasury  declared  that  it  would  take  five  hundred  years  to 
settle  our  vast  domain.  It  may  take  that  long  to  settle  it, 
but  in  these  few  years,  if  it  has  not  all  been  settled,  it 
has  all  been  seized,  so  that  to-day,  while  two-thirds  of 
it  is  idle,  practically  all  of  it  is  owned.  Therefore,  as  the 
result  of  this  forestalling  of  the  continent,  and  the  pressure 
of  population  upon  our  monopolized  resources,  there  is  an 
unnatural  competition  among  men  for  jobs,  and  wages, 
relative  to  prices,  are  so  low  that  the  producers  cannot  buy 
the  products  of  their  own  hands.  Instead  of  destroying 
monopoly  and  raising  wages  so  that  the  American  people 


The  Abolition  of  Poverty  55 

can  be  their  own  market,  we  are  already  beginning  to  de- 
mand markets  abroad  where  we  may  sell  the  products  of 
American  labor  which  American  laborers  cannot  buy.  So 
our  jingo  statesmen  stand  up  in  the  halls  of  Congress  and 
talk  of  our  coming  fight  for  trade  with  the  rising  powers 
of  China  and  Japan.  If  we  were  to  plan  intelligently  for 
that  contest  with  the  Orient,  if  we  were  to  prepare — not 
with  growing  armaments  and  braggart  navies — if  we  were 
to  prepare  for  it  by  solving  our  domestic  problems,  by 
abolishing  poverty,  and  draining  off  our  slums,  and  keeping 
our  society  virile  and  sound  at  the  core,  the  frozen  peaks 
of  Shasta  and  Ranier  might  be  left  to  guard  alone  our 
western  shore,  for  no  yellow  host  would  ever  come  to  try 
our  strength. 

Let  America  once  resolve  to  convert  her  political  equal- 
ity into  terms  of  economic  freedom ;  let  her,  by  the  magic 
of  social  justice,  release  the  mighty  energies  of  her  people 
and  her  continent;  and  she  can  laugh  at  the  mythical 
armies  of  China  and  Japan. 

America  exploited  and  armed  is  the  ideal  of  a  false 
patriotism.  To  be  free  is  to  be  thrice  armed.  Let  Amer- 
ica conquer  herself  and  lead  the  world  into  the  paths  of 
justice  and  peace. 

In  our  veins  runs  the  blood  of  all  the  peoples  of  earth 
who  have  hated  oppression  and  demanded  liberty.  Why 
was  this  mighty  continent  reserved  for  us,  the  lovers  of 
freedom  from  all  lands?  What  is  our  destiny?  Dare  we 
believe  that  a  new  hour  is  striking  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  and  that  we  are  the  chosen  nation  to  break  the 
bands  of  all  the  centuries  and  follow  the  shining  way  to 
freedom?  Suppose  that  faith  should  take  possession  of  us? 
Suppose  the  nation  were  to  become  intoxicated  with  that 
divine  purpose?  What  a  religion  that  would  be!  Thy 
Kingdom  Come  in  America !  And  Now !  What  if  a  sov- 


56  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

ereign  people  should  get  to  praying  that  prayer  in  dead 
earnest  ?  It  would  be  like  the  coming  of  the  Christ !  Look 
out  for  a  man-sized  revolution  then!  Indeed,  it  would  be 
Christianity  at  last! 


A  CERTAIN  RICH  MAN 

Woe  unto  you  when  all  men  speak  well  of  you. — Jesus 

The  author  received  a  letter  from  a  certain  rich  man  from 

which  the  following  paragraphs  are  taken : 

"Your  whole  course,  during  the  past  few  years,  has, 
in  my  opinion,  been  that  of  a  demagogue.  Whatever 
your  motives,  the  result  of  your  efforts  has  been  to 
increase  class  bitterness,  and  to  add  to  the  difficulty  of 
settling  the  many  questions  now  pressing  for  public 
consideration." 

"The  power  your  gift  of  oratory  gave  you  over 
some  of  our  people  is  fast  going  from  you,  and  your 
influence  in  the  community,  I  believe,  is  substantially 
ended." 

This  corespondence  related  to  a  pending  election  which 
resulted  in  the  decisive  defeat  of  the  rich  man's  cause.  The 
author,  before  the  election  at  which  the  cause  for  which 
he  contended  was  triumphant,  replied  to  the  rich  man  as 
follows : 
"Dear  Mr.  - 

"On  reading  your  letter,  the  words  of  the  Hebrew 
Scripture  came  to  me: 

These  are  the  things  that  ye  shall  do:  Speak  ye 
every  man  truth  with  his  neighbor ;  execute  the  judg- 
ment of  truth  and  peace  in  your  gates ;  and  let  none  of 
you  imagine  evil  in  your  hearts  against  his  neighbor. 

"I  have  often  forgotten  this  in  the  excesses  of  public 
speech,  and  have  imagined  evil  in  my  heart  against  some  of 
my  neighbors. 


58  The  Religion   of  Revolution 

"But  even  Jesus  was  not  able  to  do  his  work  without 
saying  harsh  things  and  making  bitter  enemies.  In  view  of 
his  example,  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  humanly  possible  for 
men  to  clash  in  their  opinions  and  interests  without  judg- 
ing and  disliking  each  other.  Yet  the  example  of  Jesus 
does  not  relieve  me  of  a  sense  of  fault  and  failure  that  I 
should  not  have  been  able  to  preach  the  truth  in  which  I 
believe  so  as  to  win  the  good-will  of  all  of  my  neighbors. 

"While  I  cannot  but  feel  that  I  am  to  blame  for  having 
enemies,  still  I  am  comforted  by  the  saying  of  Jesus : 

"  'Woe  unto  you  when  all  men  speak  well  of  you.' 

"It  would  be  simpler  if  one  could  meet  hate  with  hate 
and  be  as  sure  that  he  is  wholly  right  as  his  enemies  may 
be  that  he  is  wholly  wrong. 

"You  call  me  a  demagogue.  They  called  Tom  Johnson 
that.  He  spent  his  fortune  and  strength  for  an  ideal,  and 
some  who  did  not  comprehend  his  ideal,  but  whose  divi- 
dends were  threatened  by  his  influence,  called  him  a  dema- 
gogue. They  crucified  him  with  the  kind  of  crucifixion 
which  is  permitted  in  these  days.  What  shall  I  say  of  the 
people  who  did  that?  All  one  should  say,  doubtless,  is 
what  Jesus  said  on  the  cross:  'Father,  forgive  them,  for 
they  know  not  what  they  do.' 

"You  speak  of  my  power  of  oratory  as  passing  away, 
and  of  my  influence  as  practically  ended.  If  my  aim  in 
life  were  power  and  influence,  I  would  deserve  the  judg- 
ment which  you  have  passed  upon  me. 

"I  ought  to  want  to  be  faithful  to  the  truth  as  I  under- 
stand it.  If  my  faithfulness  should  result  in  the  loss  of  my 
influence,  that  loss  should  be  regarded  as  my  offering  to 
the  cause,  and  the  sacrifice  of  my  influence  under  such  cir- 
cumstances should  give  me  more  happiness  than  men  ever 
get  out  of  the  power  and  wealth  for  which  they  strive. 


A   Certain  Rich  Man  59 

"There  are  times  at  least  when  one  seems  to  experience 
something  of  the  meaning  of  what  was  said  by  Jesus  about 
laying  up  treasures  in  heaven;  when  the  power  and  influ- 
ence which  men  hold  so  precious  can  be  surrendered  with- 
out any  sense  of  loss  but  with  a  sense  of  burdens  laid  down. 

"You  are  a  very  rich  man;  I  am  poor.  I  have  had  to- 
wards you,  and  still  have,  the  feeling  which  Jesus  indi- 
cated when  he  declared  that  it  was  hard  for  a  rich  man  to 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Tom  Johnson  was  a 
rich  man,  but  he  became  poor,  striving  to  abolish  social 
conditions  which  make  some  so  very  rich  in  face  of  such 
terrible  poverty.  For  a  rich  man  to  cease  to  desire  to  be 
rich,  for  him  to  sacrifice  his  riches  in  the  cause  of  brother- 
hood— this  is  what  I  think  Jesus  meant  by  the  expression 
'entering  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.' 

"Joseph  Fels  was  a  rich  man.  But  he  was  quick  to 
admit  that  the  sharp  and  humiliating  and  extreme  differ- 
ences in  society  are  due  to  social  arrangements,  which  are 
unjust  and  cruel.  Joseph  Fels,  in  his  readiness  to  make 
war  on  the  tragedies  of  our  industrial  society,  and  in  his 
wholehearted  effort  to  radically  change  this  society,  has 
seemed  to  me  to  be  one  of  those  exceptional  cases  to  which 
Jesus  referred  of  a  rich  man  entering  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

"Tom  Johnson  and  Joseph  Fels  thought  me  worthy  of 
their  esteem.  Moreover,  I  am  conscious  of  no  sentiment 
toward  the  rich  and  poor  which  I  have  not  received  from 
Moses  and  Isaiah  and  Jesus.  To  lose  one's  influence 
preaching  the  truth  for  which  these  men  stood,  that  is  a 
small  price  to  pay  for  the  privilege  of  their  fellowship. 
The  consciousness  of  having  paid  some  price  to  preach  his 
truth,  this  is  the  preacher's  glory. 

"I  am  not  a  worthy  preacher  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  But 
I  shall  try  to  be.  There  are  times  when  I  feel  honored  by 


60  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

some  measure  of  worthiness,  and  these  are  the  times  when 
I  am  able  to  believe  that  I  am  hated  by  the  same  kind  of 
people  who  hated  Him,  and  for  the  reason  that  I  am 
preaching  that  part  of  His  gospel,  which  they  wish  to 
forget. 

"You  talk  of  oratory  and  influence!  Never  before  or 
since  have  men  heard  such  oratory  as  that  which  spoke  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  great  was  the  Orator's  in- 
fluence, for  the  people  heard  Him  gladly.  But  there  came 
a  time  when  that  oratory  was  choked  with  blood,  and  then 
the  men  who  had  the  murder  done,  said  with  satisfaction, 
'His  influence  is  ended.' 

"But  it  was  not  so.    The  words  of  the  orator  still  live : 

'Blessed  are  ye,  when  men  shall  revile  you,  and  per- 
secute you,  and  shall  say  all  manner  of  evil  against  you 
falsely  for  my  sake.  Rejoice  and  be  exceeding  glad, 
for  great  is  your  reward  in  heaven ;  for  so  persecuted 
they  the  prophets  which  were  before  you.' 

"The  hope  of  one  day  receiving  this  blessing  is  like  the 
opening  gates  of  heaven." 


A  POLITICAL  PARABLE 

But  seek  ye  first  his  righteousness;  and  all  these  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you. — Jesus. 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  community  of  just  two 
members.  One  was  a  workingman.  There  has  to  be 
some  one  around  who  works.  This  workingman  did  what 
all  laborers  must  do — produced  food  and  raiment  by  ap- 
plying his  labor  to  the  resources  of  the  earth. 

The  other  member  of  the  community  was  a  very  lordly 
person,  very  lordly  and  lazy.  The  lordly  person  did  no 
work,  yet  he  was  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen  and  he 
fared  sumptuously  every  day. 

One  day  a  third  member  was  added  to  the  community. 
The  third  man  was  a  preacher.  The  lordly  person  had 
more  food  and  raiment  than  he  could  consume,  so  he 
agreed  to  give  some  to  the  preacher.  In  return  the 
preacher  was  to  look  after  the  spiritual  welfare  of  this 
community  of  three. 

Having  a  preacher,  the  lordly  person  wanted  a  church. 
Therefore  he  ordered  the  workingman  to  build  it.  Hav- 
ing the  church,  and  the  preacher,  they  decided  to  have  a 
go-to-church  rally.  They  got  the  entire  community  out  to 
meeting. 

The  lordly  person  sat  on  the  front  seat.  The  working- 
man  was  up  in  the  gallery.  The  preacher  took  for  his 
text: 

"Be  not  anxious  for  your  life,  what  ye  shall  eat,  or 

what  ye  shall  drink,  nor  yet  for  your  body,  what  ye 

shall  put  on." 

That  was  easy  for  the  lordly  person.    He  did  not  have 


62  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

to  be  anxious.  But  what  about  the  workingman  in  the 
gallery?  Suppose  he  had  shouted  right  out  in  meeting: 
"I  would  not  have  to  be  anxious  either,  if  that  lordly  per- 
son down  in  the  front  seat  would  produce  his  own  food 
and  raiment  and  I  were  permitted  to  keep  mine." 

That  would  have  been  scandalous.  If  the  workingman 
had  done  anything  like  that,  the  lordly  person  would  have 
had  an  article  in  his  newspaper  next  day  denouncing  the 
anarchist.  The  joke  of  it  is,  that  the  workingman  would 
have  had  to  furnish  the  brains  to  write  the  article  and  the 
labor  to  set  up  the  type  and  do  the  press-work,  and  then 
he  would  have  had  to  get  out  on  the  street  and  sell  the 
paper  to  himself,  denouncing  himself. 

But  that  did  not  happen.  Something  more  astonishing 
than  that  happened.  On  this  occasion  the  preacher 
preached  the  truth. 

"Brethren,"  said  he,  "this  text  can  be  understood  only 
in  connection  with  the  other  text: 

'But  seek  ye  first  his  righteousness;  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you.'  " 

Then  the  preacher  turned  directly  to  the  lordly  person 
in  the  front  seat  and  said : 

"The  heavenly  Father  does  not  want  any  of  His  chil- 
dren to  have  to  be  anxious  about  food  and  raiment.  That 
man  in  the  gallery  is  anxious.  It  is  mockery  to  tell  him 
not  to  be  anxious.  Sir,  it  is  because  you  produce  nothing, 
but  eat  the  fruits  of  his  labor.  Seek  first  the  righteousness 
of  God.  Let  justice  be  done,  in  this  community.  Let 
each  man  work  and  live  upon  the  fruits  of  his  own  labor. 
Then  all  may  be  free  from  anxiety." 

The  lordly  person  arose  in  his  seat  with  gathering 
wrath.  Trembling  with  passion,  he  cried  out : 

"See  here,  you  young  theologue,  who  pays  your  salary 


A  Political  Parable  63 

anyway?  I  want  you  to  understand  that  as  long  as  I  pay 
your  salary  you  are  to  stick  to  the  gospel  and  let  the  labor 
problem  alone." 

The  preacher  was  amazed,  but  he  was  not  in  the  least 
cowed.  As  soon  as  he  could  comprehend  what  had  hap- 
pened he  said : 

"Apparently  I  have  made  a  mistake.  When  I  came  to 
this  church  I  thought  it  was  the  house  of  God.  You 
appear  to  consider  it  your  house.  I  supposed  that  I  had 
been  called  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  the  whole  gospel 
with  all  its  power  to  save  and  free  and  bless  mankind. 
You  say  that  you  will  tolerate  only  a  part  of  the  gospel. 
You  insist  that  I  fill  every  sermon  with  half-truths,  which 
will  not  disturb  any  of  your  privileges,  but  which  will 
keep  the  workingman  contented  with  his  lot. 

"If  this  is  what  is  expected  of  me,  then  off  with  these 
vestments ;  take  your  church.  I'll  preach  the  gospel  on  the 
street  corners  if  necessary.  Nay,  this  workingman  and  I 
are  a  majority  in  this  community.  We  will  unite.  With 
our  votes  we  will  decree  a  revolution.  We  will  establish 
the  righteousness  of  God.  We  will  make  honest  laws. 
We  will  stop  paying  you  ground  rent.  We  will  stop  pay- 
ing taxes  on  our  labor.  We  will  make  you  pay  us  ground 
rent.  We  will  pay  our  taxes  out  of  the  ground  rent  you 
are  now  collecting  from  us.  We  will  take  enough  of  this 
ground  rent  so  that  we  can  loan  ourselves  capital.  One 
man  shall  not  be  enslaved  to  another  because  he  does  not 
happen  to  inherit  the  capital  needed  to  make  his  labor 
effective.  We  will  take  the  full  ground  rent  and  this  will 
make  the  land  free  and  industry  tax-free,  and  capital 
accessible  to  all  on  easy  terms.  Then  sir,  if  you  will  not 
work,  you  will  starve.  This  will  be  freedom  for  the 
workingman  in  the  gallery.  But  it  will  make  you  free 
also.  You  will  not  be  free  to  rob  your  brother.  You  will 


64  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

not  be  free  to  charge  him  for  his  own  God-given  birth- 
right ;  you  will  not  be " 

"Socialism!"  cried  the  lordly  person,  bursting  with  rage, 
"Confiscation!  Robbery!  Single  Tax!" 

"Yes,"  shouted  the  preacher,  "and  CHRISTIANITY." 

But  the  preacher  was  not  through. 

"Did  you  expect  me,"  he  continued,  "to  preach,  in  the 
name  of  Jesus,  that  these  monstrous  privileges  of  yours 
are  honest  property  rights?  Did  you  expect  me,  in  HIS 
name,  to  defend  all  this  slavery,  and  to  blot  out  from  the 
souls  of  men  the  mighty  hope  that  was  born  in  Bethlehem, 
the  hope  of  justice  and  good  will,  the  hope  of  heaven  on 
earth  ? 

"Rather,  I  will  go  into  the  highways  and  preach  the 
gospel  of  Him  who  had  compassion  on  the  multitude.  I 
will  preach  to  men  who  will  pray  with  their  ballots.  I 
will  say  to  them:  'Come,  let  us  establish  the  righteous- 
ness of  God.  Let  us  destroy  every  privilege  of  law  by 
which  one  man  appropriates  the  fruits  of  another's  labor. 
Let  us  create  a  new  public  opinion  and  decree  justice,  that 
none  of  God's  children  need  be  anxious  about  food  and 
raiment,  that  all  may  practise  the  precept  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.'  " 

But  that  preacher  had  a  lot  to  learn.  He  lost  his  job. 
That  goes  without  saying.  He  expected  that.  But  some- 
thing else  happened  which  he  did  not  expect.  He  went  to 
the  workingman  and  outlined  his  plans  for  a  Christian 
revolution.  But  the  workingman  refused  to  join  him. 
The  workingman  in  the  gallery  was  with  the  lordly  per- 
son on  the  front  seat. 

This  is  the  way  one  preacher  discovered  that  the  trouble 
is  not  with  the  selfishness  of  the  man  on  the  front  seat,  so 
much  as  with  the  ignorance  of  the  man  in  the  gallery.  If 
the  man  in  the  gallery  had  had  the  sense  to  understand  the 


A  Political  Parable  65 

preacher's  sermon,  he  would  have  had  the  power  to  win 
his  own  freedom. 

So  the  preached  turned  to  the  book  of  wisdom  and 
added  a  proverb,  coined  out  of  his  own  experience.  It  was 
this: 

The  Mind  is  the  Seat  of  Slavery. 


CONFISCATION 

Then  there  arose  a  great  cry  of  the  people  and  of  their 
wives  against  their  brethren  the  Jews.  For  there  were  those 
who  said :  We  bring  into  bondage  our  sons  and  daughters 
to  be  servants.  .  .  .  Neither  is  it  in  our  power  to  help  it ; 
for  other  men  have  our  fields  and  our  vineyards. 

And  I  was  very  angry  when  I  heard  their  cry,  and  I  said : 
Restore,  I  pray  you,  to  them,  even  this  day,  their  fields, 
their  oliveyards  and  their  houses.  .  .  . 

Then  said  they,  We  will  restore  them,  and  will  require 
nothing  of  them.  .  .  .  And  the  people  did  according  to 
this  promise. — Nehemiah. 

The  fifth  chapter  of  Nehemiah  tells  how  the  poor  fell 
into  bondage  to  the  rich.  There  is  nothing  remarkable 
about  that.  That  is  a  very  commonplace  story,  as  another 
Bible  writer  observed:  "And  I  beheld  the  tears  of  such 
as  were  oppressed,  and  they  had  no  comforter,  and  on  the 
side  of  their  oppressors  there  was  power." 

The  remarkable  thing  about  this  Nehemiah  story  is  that 
for  once  power  swung  to  the  side  of  the  oppressed.  The 
privileges  of  the  rulers  were  successfully  challenged.  Res- 
titution was  made.  Justice,  swift  and  thorough,  was  done. 

As  long  as  such  stories  are  left  in  the  Bible  it  will  be  a 
dangerous  book,  dangerous  to  those  whose  fortunes  rest  on 
the  bodies  and  souls  of  living  men. 

Nehemiah  "consulted  with  himself"  before  he  contended 
with  the  nobles.  If  he  had  consulted  with  anybody  else  he 
probably  would  have  been  advised  against  such  audacity. 
His  success  was  sensational.  The  money  barons  consented 
to  cancel  the  mortgages.  Debts  were  remitted.  Notes 
were  torn  up.  Houses  and  fields  were  given  back.  The 
monopolists  relaxed  their  grip. 


68  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

In  our  day  they  would  have  gotten  out  an  injunction. 
Nehemiah  would  have  been  denounced  as  a  demagogue. 
He  would  have  been  held  up  to  execration  as  a  preacher  of 
repudiation. 

He  would  have  been  cartooned  as  a  confiscationist. 
Doubtless,  if  the  whole  story  were  known,  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  of  Jerusalem  did  pass  resolutions  against 
him.  How  could  they  expect  to  get  the  capitalists  of 
Egypt  and  Assyria  to  buy  Jerusalem  bonds  ?  Think  of  all 
the  improvements  that  the  city  needed.  Think  of  all  the 
men  who  might  be  employed.  But  who  would  invest  in  a 
city  run  by  agitators?  "Give  us  a  rest."  "What  business 
needs  is  stability."  "Investors  must  have  confidence." 

There  is  nothing  new  in  history.  It  is  a  certainty  that 
Nehemiah  heard  lots  of  that  kind  of  talk.  But  he  con- 
tinued to  press  his  amazing  demands.  He  did  not  have  to 
bother  about  a  Constitution.  There  was  no  Dartmouth 
College  case  in  the  way.  Taking  property  without  due 
process  of  law  did  not  worry  him.  The  poor  were  in  a 
pitiable  plight.  The  rich  had  them  on  the  hip.  Nehemiah 
was  hot  about  it.  So  he  held  "a  great  assembly"  against 
the  rulers.  He  called  a  town  meeting.  He  put  the  issue 
to  a  referendum  vote.  The  opposition  collapsed  com- 
pletely. The  rulers  seemed  very  meek  about  it.  Perhaps, 
however,  that  great  assembly  had  something  to  do  with 
their  meekness. 

What  have  the  big  rich  aristocratic  Christians  of  our 
day  to  say  about  that  story?  This  is  not  Jack  Cade, 
Eugene  Debs  or  John  Lawson.  This  is  Nehemiah,  and 
the  story  of  his  raid  on  property  rights  is  shamelessly  and 
gleefully  told  in  one  of  the  canonical  books  of  the  Holy 
Bible.  It  seems,  after  all,  that  property  rights  are  not 
the  only  sacred  things  in  this  world. 

Confiscation  is  an  ugly  word.     If  property  rights  are 


Confiscation  69 

never  property  wrongs,  then  confiscation  is  a  crime.  But 
once  in  a  while  the  world  modifies  its  definition  of  prop- 
erty. It  finds  out  that  something  which  it  regarded  as  a 
property  right  is,  after  all,  nothing  but  the  privilege  which 
had  been  acquired  by  some  men  to  interfere  with  the 
property  rights  of  others.  Each  new  definition  of  property 
has  been  followed  by  an  act  which  has  been  denounced  as 
confiscation  by  those  who  could  not  comprehend  or  were 
determined  to  resist  the  new  definition.  We  may  cite  an 
example  of  what  might  be  called  the  greatest  act  of  confis- 
cation that  was  ever  perpetrated  in  the  world's  history. 
The  act  was  committed  by  the  United  States  Government, 
and  the  sanction  for  it  was  written  into  the  Constitution 
of  this  Republic. 

Men  insisted  that  slaves  were  property.  That  was  all 
right  as  long  as  the  slaves  were  left  out  of  consideration. 
But  if  the  slaves  were  men,  who  were  to  be  allowed  prop- 
erty rights  with  other  men,  then  slavery  was  a  privilege  of 
white  men  to  interfere  with  the  property  rights  of  black 
men.  Therefore  property  in  black  men  was  declared  to  be 
not  property  at  all,  but  a  privilege  which  was  destructive 
of  property  rights.  And  in  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  of 
the  Federal  Constitution  we  read  this  shocking  declaration 
in  defense  of  the  act  whereby  this  so-called  property  was 
confiscated : 

But  neither  the  United  States  nor  any  state  shall 
assume  or  pay  any  debt  or  obligation  incurred  in  aid 
of  insurrection  or  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
or  any  claim  for  the  loss  or  emancipation  of  any  slave  ; 
but  all  such  debts,  obligations,  and  claims  shall  be 
held  illegal  and  void. 

The  time  seems  to  have  come  for  another  and  more 
discriminating  statement  of  property  rights.  Wide-spread 


yo  The  Religion   of  Revolution 

and  chronic  poverty  indicates  that  there  must  still  be  some 
confusion  between  property  and  privilege.  Reflection  on 
this  matter  is  bringing  many  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
property  right  to  hold  land  out  of  use  should  be  outlawed. 

The  right  to  own  land  for  use  is  not  questioned.  The 
right  to  hold  land  out  of  use  is  openly  and  widely  denied. 
It  is  over  this  issue  chiefly  that  the  next  great  battle  for 
human  freedom  is  to  be  fought. 

If,  in  the  center  of  the  "city,  some  one  were  to  persist  in 
holding  a  dozen  blocks  out  of  use,  the  citizens  who  had  to 
travel  back  and  forth  would  soon  revise  their  definition  of 
landed  property. 

If,  in  the  midst  of  a  farming  community,  there  were  an 
insane  old  miser  who  held  a  million  acres  out  of  use, 
everybody  would  begin  to  question  the  wisdom  of  the  law 
which  permitted  it. 

But  what  is  the  difference  whether  one  man  holds  a 
million  acres  out  of  use,  or  a  million  men  each  hold  one 
acre  out  of  use?  What  is  the  difference  whether  these 
idle  acres  are  consolidated  into  one  vast  solitude,  or  so 
scattered  that  they  escape  notice?  The  economic  effect  is 
the  same.  It  is  the  idleness  of  the  land  that  hurts.  For 
every  piece  of  land  is  a  potential  job.  When  jobs  are 
scarce  men  are  cheap,  and  there  is  low  wages,  and  unem- 
ployment and  poverty. 

The  Thirteenth  Census  of  the  United  States  says  that 
less  than  one-half  of  the  area  of  the  country  is  in  farms, 
and  that  nearly  half  of  this  farm  area  is  idle.  These  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  idle  acres  in  the  country  should  either 
be  used  by  their  owners,  or  they  should  be  sold  to  those 
who  wish  to  use  them;  and  if  the  owners  can  neither  use 
them  nor  sell  them,  they  should  be  free,  so  that  when  men 
lose  out  in  other  occupations  they  may  always  turn  to  the 


Confiscation  71 

free  public  domain  where  they  can  get  land  and  go  to 
work  for  themselves  without  money  and  without  price. 

To  release  every  idle  acre  in  the  United  States  would 
be  the  profoundest  economic  revolution  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  This  could  be  accomplished  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  concentrating  upon  land  values  the  entire 
burden  of  taxation.  If  taxation  absorbed  all  the  ground 
rent,  this  would  make  all  idle  land  free.  Besides  that,  all 
industry  on  the  land  would  have  a  perpetual  bonus  of 
tax  exemption.  In  recognition  of  the  equal  rights  of  others 
each  man  would  pay  an  annual  premium,  based  upon  the 
value  of  the  land  which  he  was  privileged  to  hold.  If  the 
land  had  no  value  he  would  pay  nothing.  But  in  any  event 
he  would  not  be  taxed  on  his  industry.  His  tax  burdens 
would  not  be  increased  in  proportion  to  his  industry. 

Our  ears  must  be  dull  indeed  if  we  do  not  hear,  in  our 
day  as  Nehemiah  did,  the  cry  of  the  people.  We  do  hear 
their  cry.  But  what  have  we  ever  proposed  to  do  about 
it?  In  New  York  last  winter  the  Mayor  appointed  a 
committee  to  report  on  what  was  to  be  done.  The  report 
of  the  committee  devoted  much  space  to  tell  the  poor  how 
to  make  their  left-over  victuals  taste  nice.  The  Mayor  of 
Detroit  rose  to  distinction  as  an  economist  by  proposing 
that  all  the  contractors  discard  their  steam-shovels  and  let 
the  men  use  hand  shovels,  so  that  the  work  would  last 
longer. 

What  is  wanted  is  Nehemiahs  whose  ears  are  more 
sensitive  to  the  cry  of  the  people,  and  whose  consciences 
are  less  sensitive  about  the  property  men  have  in  the  privi- 
lege of  denying  their  fellows  access  to  the  earth. 


THE  GOVERNOR'S  CONGRATULATIONS 

Thou  shall  not  kill. — Moses. 

"SUCCESSFUL,"  cried  the  first  headline  of  the  morning 
newspaper.  What  was  successful?  "Successful  Execu- 
tion." "The  Governor  Congratulates  the  Warden"  on 
the  successful  execution  of  a  prisoner  in  the  Ohio  peniten- 
tiary. The  article  was  illustrated  with  a  picture  of  the 
victim  and  also  of  the  chair  by  which  murder  has  been 
reduced  to  a  fine  art. 

The  first  thing  the  Warden  did  after  life  had  left  the 
body  was  to  answer  a  telephone  call.  The  Governor  was 
at  the  other  end  of  the  line.  "How  did  it  come  off?" 
asked  the  Governor.  "Very  smoothly,"  replied  the 
Warden.  "Congratulations!"  said  the  Governor.  Thus 
these  officials  felicitated  each  other  on  the  "smooth"  job 
they  had  done. 

The  man  died  a  few  minutes  past  midnight.  The 
chaplain  had  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  last  day  with 
him.  On  the  night  he  was  to  die  he  was  given  a  boun- 
teous feast.  To  this  grim  festival  were  invited  all  those 
who  were  awaiting  death.  When  the  favored  ones  who 
were  to  witness  the  murder  were  in  their  seats  a  deputy 
was  sent  for  the  victim.  The  man  lingered  a  moment  to 
say  farewell  to  his  fellow  prisoners. 

Then  followed  the  usual  attempt  to  give  the  murder 
the  aspect  of  a  religious  ceremony.  This  ended,  the  man 
took  his  seat  in  the  chair  and  said  good-bye  to  the  guards 
on  either  side  of  him.  He  nodded  a  farewell  to  the 
Warden,  who  stood  ready  to  take  his  life.  Then  the 


74  The  Religion   of  Revolution 

black  cap  was  adjusted  and  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty 
volts  were  sent  through  the  quivering  body. 

It  was  smoothly  done.  Not  a  blister  was  found  on  the 
body.  Tear-drops  stood  in  the  corners  of  the  eyes  and 
that  was  all.  The  autopsy  did  not  reveal  what  had  been 
done  to  the  man's  soul. 

The  State  of  Ohio  is  always  fattening  these  victims  for 
the  slaughter.  The  next  in  order  to  die  is  a  nineteen-year- 
old  boy  whose  official  murder  has  been  set  for  the  third  of 
June. 

"Thou  shalt  not  kill."  "Resist  not  evil."  These  pre- 
cepts are  forgotten.  The  State  still  says,  "Eye  for  eye, 
tooth  for  tooth,"  and  the  chaplain  is  ready  with  his  bene- 
diction. 


AN  AGITATOR 


These  that  have  turned  the  world  upside  down  are  come 
hither  also. — Acts. 


It  is  recorded  that  Paul  and  Silas  came  to  a  town  preach- 
ing a  new  religion.  They  appear  to  have  made  a  profound 
impression.  Many  embraced  the  new  faith.  But  many 
more  were  angered.  The  town  was  set  in  an  uproar.  A 
mob  started  in  search  of  the  preachers. 

Paul  and  Silas  had  been  staying  at  the  house  of  one 
named  Jason.  The  mob  assaulted  the  house.  The  preach- 
ers escaped.  But  Jason  and  others  of  the  faith  were 
seized.  They  were  dragged  before  the  rulers  of  the  city 
and  accused.  Of  what  were  they  accused?  They  were 
accused  of  disturbing  the  town  by  preaching  new  doctrines. 

Of  course  it  was  the  mob  that  had  disturbed  the  town. 
There  was  no  trouble  except  that  which  the  mob  had 
made.  The  preaching  had  caused  no  commotion.  It  was 
the  attempt  to  stop  the  preaching  that  made  the  mischief. 
Nevertheless  Jason  and  the  others  were  delivered  to  the 
rulers  of  the  city,  and  against  them  was  lodged  this  com- 
plaint: 

"These  that  have  turned  the  world  upside  down  are 
come  hither  also." 

Paul  and  Silas  had  no  better  reputation  in  Thessalonica 
than  some  I.  W.  W.  agitator  would  have  in  Cincinnati. 
News  had  preceded  these  preachers  of  Christianity,  how 
they  had  turned  other  places  upside  down.  The  good  peo- 
ple of  Thessalonica  did  not  propose  to  have  their  trade 
ruined  by  any  such  agitation.  So  they  complained  to  the 


76  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

rulers:  "These  that  have  turned  the  world  upside  down 
are  come  hither  also." 

It  is  not  the  function  of  Christianity  to  turn  the  world" 
upside  down.  It  is  the  function  of  Christianity  to  set  the 
world  right  side  up.  But  every  serious  effort  to  set  the 
world  right  side  up  alarms  certain  foolish  people  who 
think  the  world  is  being  turned  upside  down.  They  take 
alarm  because  they  themselves  are  upside-down  folks,  and 
they  fly  to  the  defense  of  the  upside-downness  of  their 
society. 

A  movement  has  been  started  in  Cincinnati  to  build  a 
monument  to  Joseph  Heberle,  an  obscure  man  who  did 
what  he  could  to  set  the  world  right  side  up.  Why  should 
we  erect  in  our  city  a  monument  to  him?  Certainly  not 
because  he  was  rich  and  powerful.  The  rich  and  the 
powerful  have  the  means  to  build  their  own  monuments. 
It  is  well  that  they  have,  for  no  one  would  build  monu- 
ments for  them. 

Nobody  builds  monuments  to  the  men  who  make  a 
profit  out  of  the  upside-downness  of  the  world,  and  who, 
for  the  sake  of  that  profit,  strive  to  keep  the  world  upside 
down.  We  do  not  prolong  the  memory  of  these  men.  We 
make  all  haste  to  forget  them. 

But  the  lovers  of  mankind,  the  haters  of  wrong,  the 
merciful  men,  the  men  of  hope  and  faith,  the  men  who 
strive  to  bless  their  fellows  by  freeing  them,  their  memory 
is  a  priceless  heritage,  and  their  dreams  and  deeds  are  a 
glory  forever. 

The  life  work  of  Joseph  Heberle  extended  over  two 
decades  of  Cincinnati  history.  The  story  of  these  twenty 
years  of  his  labors  is  a  story  of  accomplishments  which 
would  be  noteworthy,  in  any  event,  but  which  is  extraordi- 
nary when  the  handicaps  are  considered  under  which  he 
labored. 


An  Agitator  77 

Joseph  Heberle  was  a  workingman.  He  was  a  team- 
ster. He  never  made  over  eleven  dollars  a  week.  He  was 
a  trades  unionist. 

As  a  member  of  the  teamsters'  union  which  he  founded, 
and  as  a  member  of  the  central  labor  council,  whose  con- 
fidence he  enjoyed,  Joseph  Heberle  was  ever  on  the  alert 
to  see  something  that  could  be  done  to  lighten  the  burdens, 
to  diminish  the  temptations,  to  increase  the  hope  and  the 
chance  of  those  who  toil.  Many  of  the  things  that  have 
been  done  in  these  twenty  years  were  conceived  by  him, 
and  he  had  an  active  part  in  all  the  labor  legislation  of 
the  period. 

Joseph  Heberle  was  a  Socialist.  Let  us  not  hide  that. 
He  believed  that  justice  and  humanity  required  that  there 
should  be  an  economic  readjustment  which  will  give  the 
workingmen  a  larger  reward  and  which  will  overthrow 
the  present  autocratic  form  of  industry  even  as  political 
autocracy  has  been  overthrown.  In  the  years  to  come  his 
monument  will  stand  as  a  silent  rebuke  to  those  who 
malign  his  Socialist  faith. 

But  it  takes  a  long  time  for  great  ideas  to  germinate 
and  grow  and  bear  their  fruit  in  new  emancipations. 
Meanwhile  there  is  much  that  can  be  done.  This  Joseph 
Heberle  saw.  He  did  not  wait  for  his  millennium.  He 
seized  the  present  opportunity.  He  saw  what  was  possible 
to  do,  and  he  devoted  himself  to  that.  When  one  thing 
was  done  he  turned  to  the  next  thing.  It  was  always 
something. 

It  is  wonderful  to  know  that  one  man,  so  utterly  desti- 
ture  of  social  advantages,  could  achieve  so  much. 

The  motormen  on  the  street-cars  of  to-day  are  pro- 
tected by  the  enclosed  and  heated  vestibule.  They  used 
to  stand  out  in  the  open,  exposed  to  cutting  winds,. 


78  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

drenched  with  driving  rains,  suffering  bitterly  at  times, 
with  frozen  feet  and  hands. 

Joseph  Heberle  proposed  that  the  company  be  made  to 
protect  the  men  and  safeguard  the  public.  Of  course, 
there  were  many  very  good  and  convincing  reasons  why 
this  was  entirely  out  of  the  question.  The  rain  would 
freeze  to  the  glass  and  the  motormen  could  not  see.  It 
would  cost  too  much.  It  wasn't  done  anywhere  else. 
Besides,  the  motormen  didn't  ask  for  it.  And  who  was 
Heberle?  A  meddler.  A  noisy  agitator.  One  of  those 
men  who  want  to  turn  everything  upside  down.  Vesti- 
bules for  motormen,  think  of  it!  These  meddlesome  re- 
formers kill  business.  Pity  the  poor  corporations.  How 
can  they  make  money,  how  can  they  borrow  money,  if 
they  are  to  be  pestered  in  this  way?  So  the  argument 
raged  about  the  vestibules.  There  was  every  reason  against 
the  reform  but  one,  and  that  reason  was  Heberle — He- 
berle with  the  backing  of  the  labor  men ;  and  that  reason 
outweighed  the  rest,  and  the  motormen  got  their  vesti- 
bules, and  that  which  they  said  could  not  be  done  was 
done.  This  little  story  of  the  vestibule  is  the  old,  old 
story  of  human  progress.  Special  interests  on  the  one 
side,  and  on  the  other,  a  just  cause,  backed  by  some- 
body's faith  and  determination. 

Joseph  Heberle  was  not  a  Prohibitionist ;  how  could  he 
be  with  that  name?  But  he,  as  a  teamster,  knew  that 
the  men  who  stopped  to  water  their  horses  in  front  of  a 
saloon  were  often  led  into  indulgencies  and  expenditures 
which  they  could  not  afford.  These  were  his  teamsters, 
his  boys.  If  they  spent  their  money  foolishly  and  to  their 
detriment,  they  could  not  be  good  home  men,  they  could 
not  be  good  union  men,  they  could  not  be  useful  citizens. 
What  was  to  be  done  ?  Joseph  Heberle  said :  Let  the  city 
build  watering-troughs  so  that  the  boys  who  do  not  want 


An  Agitator  79 

to  spend  money  in  a  saloon  will  not  feel  under  obligation 
to  do  so. 

There  were  as  many  reasons  against  this  reform  as  there 
were  saloon-keepers  in  council,  and  in  those  days  there 
were  a  plenty.  Nevertheless,  council  voted  the  appropria- 
tion, and  Joseph  Heberle  got  watering-troughs  for  "his 
boys."  He  drove  a  wagon  for  his  living,  but  he  was  a 
legislator  as  well  as  a  teamster,  and  council  was  passing 
laws  on  his  demands. 

Sunday,  until  recently,  was  the  great  funeral  day.  Peo- 
ple postponed  dying  in  order  to  have  a  Sunday  funeral. 
Joseph  Heberle  decided  that  the  living  have  rights  which 
the  dead  are  bound  to  respect.  His  hack-drivers  were 
entitled  to  their  Sunday's  rest.  The  Sunday  funeral 
should  be  abolished.  Here  the  hackmen's  union  made 
common  cause  with  the  preacher's  union.  That  was  once 
when  the  church  got  interested  in  the  labor  problem.  So 
the  institution  known  as  the  Sunday  funeral  was  abol- 
ished. It  was  Joseph  Heberle  who  put  an  end  to  that  old 
custom.  Joseph  Heberle  was  a  teamster  who  drove  law- 
makers. 


THE  FATHER'S  FARM 

I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  father. — Luke. 

It  was  on  the  night  of  one  of  New  York's  great  blizzards. 
I  had  been  invited  to  speak  to  the  men  of  the  Bowery 
Mission.  It  was  an  opportunity,  worth  a  battle  with  the 
storm,  to  preach  the  gospel  of  redemption  to  these  wrecks 
of  the  storms  of  life. 

For  a  Scripture  lesson  I  purposed  to  read  the  parable 
of  the  prodigal  son.  I  opened  the  Bible,  but  did  not  find 
the  parable.  "Surely,"  I  said  to  myself,  "It  is  in  the 
fifteenth  chapter  of  Luke.  I  cannot  be  mistaken."  But  I 
could  not  find  it.  In  my  confusion  I  turned  to  the  leader 
of  the  mission. 

"Oh,"  said  he,  "you  are  looking  for  the  parable  of  the 
prodigal  son,  are  you?  Well,  that  isn't  in  there.  We 
tore  it  out." 

"What,"  said  I,  "tore  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son 
out  of  your  Bible?" 

"Yes,  it  is  this  way,"  he  answered.  "We  have  a  dif- 
ferent preacher  down  here  every  night,  and  every  last 
one  of  them  wants  to  read  that  parable.  The  men  got  so 
sore  about  it  that  they  tore  it  out,  so  the  preachers  couldn't 
find  it." 

Do  you  know  why  the  men  tired  of  that  parable?  It 
was  because  the  preachers  never  really  preached  it  to 
them.  This  parable  has  two  parts. 

The  first  part  of  the  parable  is  the  spiritual  truth,  the 
second  is  the  social  truth.  These  truths  should  never  be 
separated.  But  in  most  sermons  they  are  separated. 
Neither  part  is  really  true  without  the  other.  Both  are 
necessary  for  the  redemption  of  mankind. 


82  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

The  first  part  of  the  parable  teaches  that  there  is  in 
every  man,  as  Victor  Hugo  would  say,  a  primitive  spark, 
a  divine  element,  indestructible  in  this  life,  immortal  in 
the  next.  No  matter  how  deep  a  man  may  get  in  sin  and 
shame,  his  manhood  is  never  quite  submerged.  To  appeal 
to  that  latent  manhood,  to  bring  a  man  back  to  himself, 
this  is  the  preacher's  work.  Salvation  is  coming  to  one's 
self. 

This  is  what  happened  to  the  boy  of  the  parable.  We 
are  not  told  how  it  happened.  It  may  have  been  an  al- 
most fatal  illness  that  roused  him.  It  may  have  been  a 
picture,  a  song,  a  sermon.  Something  brought  a  great 
flood  of  memories.  Some  great  disgust  within  him  re- 
volted at  his  degradation.  A  miracle  happened.  There 
was  a  revolution  in  his  soul.  He  seemed  a  new  being. 
And  when  he  came  to  himself  he  said:  "I  will  arise  and 
go  to  my  father." 

Now  we  come  to  the  second  part  of  the  parable.  The 
first  thing  a  man  has  to  do,  who  is  lifted  out  of  the  mire 
of  the  old  life,  is  to  get  a  job  somewhere  and  go  to  work. 
Honest  work  is  a  part  of  the  salvation.  So  the  boy  went 
back  and  got  a  job  on  his  father's  farm,  not  as  a  servant, 
but  as  a  son.  The  spiritual  awakening  is  one  factor  in  a 
man's  redemption.  It  is  the  first  and  primary  factor. 
But  opportunity  to  work  is  also  a  factor. 

In  the  second  part  of  the  parable  the  elder  brother 
takes  the  front  of  the  stage.  The  main  purpose  of  the 
parable  is  to  show  him  up.  If  you  were  to  ride  home  on 
a  street-car  with  this  elder  brother,  and  got  to  talking  with 
him  about  the  labor  problem,  he  would  settle  the  whole 
matter,  to  his  own  complete  satisfaction,  with  the  remark: 
"The  poor  get  what's  coming  to  them.  Every  man 

can  find  work  if  he  wants  it.     If  we'd  take  tar  and 

feathers  to  the  blank  agitators  this  country  would  be 

all  right." 


The  Fathers  Farm  83 

If  the  father  had  died  during  the  boy's  absence,  and  if 
the  elder  brother  had  been  in  control  of  the  farm,  there 
would  have  been  no  tears  wasted  on  the  young  scapegrace. 
He  would  have  been  kicked  off  the  place. 

There  is  a  farm  out  West  which  is  larger  than  a  good 
many  Palestines.  There  are  less  than  seventeen  hundred 
elder  brothers  and  corporations  of  elder  brothers,  who  to- 
gether own  one  hundred  and  five  million  six  hundred 
thousand  acres  of  America,  our  Father's  farm.  One 
twentieth  of  the  land  of  the  United  States  is  now  con- 
centrated in  that  few  hands. 

The  Chicago  Tribune  (August  25,  1915)  says:  "A 
quarter  of  a  billion  acres  of  land  lie  idle  and  undeveloped 
in  the  South  alone,  two-thirds  of  it  being  tillable.  And 
hardly  a  day's  ride  away  are  the  great  cities  of  New 
York,  Chicago,  Baltimore,  Boston,  Philadelphia  and  other 
manufacturing  centers,  where  people  are  crowded  to- 
gether in  tenements." 

A  report  of  the  Forest  Service  of  the  United  States 
Department  of  Agriculture  says:  "In  Oregon  and  Wash- 
ington alone,  more  than  three  million  acres  of  logged-off 
lands  are  lying  idle,  although  much  of  this  area  has  fine 
agricultural  soil  and  a  climate  that  insures  abundant  crops 
and  the  development  of  thriving  communities.  Yet  in 
this  same  region  hundreds  of  settlers  are  seeking  to  find 
places  in  the  National  forests,  usually  remote  from  trans- 
portation, where  the  climate  is  harsh  and  the  soil  rela- 
tively poor,  simply  because  the  good  lands  at  lower  levels 
outside  the  forests  are  held  by  the  speculators  at  pro- 
hibitive prices." 

There  are  three  land-grant  railroads  running  through 
nine  of  our  Western  states  that  own  enough  idle  land  in 
these  states  to  give  to  every  adult  male  citizen  in  these 
states  a  fifteen-acre  tract. 


84  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

The  Southern  Pacific  Railroad,  with  its  subsidiaries, 
holds  nine  million  acres  of  idle  land.  A  firm  of  brokers, 
in  advertising  the  stock  of  this  railroad,  holds  out  the  in- 
ducement that  the  owners  of  this  stock  are  bound  to  share 
in  "an  enormous  melon  cutting"  when  this  land  is  put  on 
the  market. 

A  Cleveland  newspaper  man  coined  this  quip:  "The 
Lord  giveth  and  the  landlord  taketh  away."  Much  of 
this  vast  domain  has  been  taken  away  by  fraud.  But  the 
fraud  cannot  be  run  down  now.  Government  prosecu- 
tions can  avail  little.  There  is  one  certain  way  to  get 
back  from  the  elder  brothers  the  land  which  God  gave  to 
all.  Make  the  owner  of  every  piece  of  land  in  all  Amer- 
ica pay  the  current  rate  of  interest  on  its  actual  value. 
Make  him  pay  that,  just  for  the  privilege  of  holding  it. 
Don't  tax  him  for  using  it,  but  tax  him  for  holding  it. 

That  is  the  way  to  give  every  boy  in  America  a  chance 
somewhere  on  his  Father's  farm.  It  is  not  pretended  that 
Jesus  had  in  mind  a  tax  and  land  reform.  But  the  father 
and  the  elder  brother  are  types  which  remain  with  us. 
When  it  is  proposed  to  do  anything  to  help  the  prodigal 
sons,  some  take  the  attitude  of  the  father,  and  some  that 
of  the  elder  brother. 

The  strangulation  of  industry  which  results  from  the 
idleness  of  land  and  from  property  taxation  is  the  primary 
cause  of  the  deplorable  social  conditions  which  break 
down  the  character  of  the  people  and  baffle  the  redemp- 
tive agencies  of  mankind. 

What,  then,  shall  we  do  about  it? 

"Do  what  is  best  for  the  boys  and  girls,"  says  the  father. 

"You  shan't  interfere  with  my  property  rights,"  snaps 
the  elder  brother. 


BAD  FOR  BUSINESS 


At  Ephesus,  a  certain  man  named  Demetrius,  a  silver- 
smith, who  made  silver  shrines  of  Diana,  brought  no  little 
business  unto  the  craftsmen ;  whom  he  gathered  together, 
with  the  workingmen  of  like  occupation,  and  said : 

Sirs,  ye  know  that  by  this  business  we  have  our  wealth. 
And  ye  see  and  hear,  that  not  alone  at  Ephesus,  but  al- 
most throughout  all  Asia,  this  Paul  hath  persuaded  and 
turned  away  much  people,  saying  that  they  be  no  gods,  that 
are  made  with  hands :  and  not  only  is  there  danger  that  this 
our  trade  come  into  disrepute ;  but  also  that  the  temple  of 
the  great  goddess  Diana  be  made  of  no  account,  and  that 
she  should  even  be  deposed  from  her  magnificence,  whom 
all  Asia  and  the  world  worshippeth. 

And  when  they  heard  this  they  were  filled  with  wrath, 
and  cried  out,  saying : 

Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians ! 

And  they  rushed  with  one  accord  into  the  theatre ;  and 
some  cried  one  thing  and  some  another;  for  the  assembly 
was  in  confusion ;  and  the  greater  part  knew  not  wherefore 
they  were  come  together. — Acts. 


History  is  the  story  of  the  unfoldment  of  freedom  on 
the  earth.  This  Ephesus  episode  is  an  epitome  of  history. 
There  are  always  the  same  contending  forces,  Paul,  the 
apostle  of  a  new  idea,  Demetrius  and  the  silversmiths, 
whose  business  is  menaced  by  the  progress  of  the  idea,  and 
the  mob  that  joins  in  the  hue  and  cry  without  knowing 
why. 

Demetrius  represents  a  special  property  interest.  The 
mob  is  swayed  by  prejudice.  The  many  lend  their  num- 
bers to  the  few,  opposing,  with  zeal,  their  own  good,  cry- 
ing: "Away  with  him!  Away  with  him!"  and  prefer- 
ring Barabbas  to  Christ. 


86  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

This  is  the  tragedy  of  history.  Every  age  has  had  its 
Calvary.  Here  it  has  raised  the  beam  of  prejudice.  To 
this  it  has  nailed  the  crosspiece  of  property.  On  this 
crucifix  of  prejudice  and  property  all  the  martyrs  of  the 
world  have  died. 

If  Demetrius  had  advertised  in  the  Ephesus  Morning 
Journal  that  the  purpose  of  the  demonstration  was  to 
protect  the  dividends  on  this  stock,  the  audience  would 
have  looked  like  the  regular  monthly  meeting  of  the 
silversmiths'  union.  But  he  was  too  clever  for  that.  The 
mob  had  no  interest  in  the  idol  factory,  but  it  was  devoted 
to  Diana  and  ready  to  destroy  her  detractors. 

Mankind  has  two  enemies,  the  cunning  of  the  few  and 
the  stupidity  of  the  many. 

The  history  of  any  great  and  good  cause  may  be  di- 
vided into  four  stages.  First  the  world  ignores  it.  Next 
it  ridicules  it.  Then  it  tries  to  crucify  it.  Finally  it 
builds  monuments  to  it. 

Every  important  truth  is  born  in  a  manger.  It  is 
nursed  in  poverty.  It  is  unrecognized  at  first,  save  by  the 
few  wise  men.  By  the  mob  it  is  despised  and  rejected.  It 
is  crucified  and  buried,  as  the  world  thinks,  but  if  it  is 
God's  truth  it  will  have  its  resurrection  from  the  grave 
and  be  written  into  the  hearts  and  laws  of  men. 

Every  valley  shall  be  exalted,  and  every  mountain 
and  hill  shall  be  made  low,  and  the  crooked  shall  be 
made  straight,  and  the  rough  places  plain. 

But  whoever  tries  to  straighten  the  crooked  thoughts 
and  the  crooked  paths  of  life,  learns  that  the  people  love 
their  devious  ways,  and  the  more  so  because  they  have 
made  investments  at  every  crook  and  turn. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  said  that  with  the  invention  of 
the  cotton-gin,  the  price  of  slaves  jumped  from  two  to 


Bad  for  Business  87 

six  hundred  dollars.  That  knocked  away  one-third  of  the 
moral  law.  They  rose  to  seven  hundred  dollars,  and  one- 
half  the  moral  law  went.  They  rose  to  nine  hundred 
dollars,  and  then  there  was  no  such  thing  as  the  moral 
law.  And  finally,  when  they  sold  for  twelve  hundred 
dollars,  slavery  had  become  one  of  the  beatitudes. 

Institutions  survive  the  reasons  for  their  existence. 
Mental  habits  yield  reluctantly  to  changed  conditions. 
The  chasm  widens  between  old  custom  and  present  need. 
Every  age  demands  its  moral  engineers  to  tunnel  the  hills 
of  prejudice,  to  bridge  the  valleys  of  privilege  and  ration- 
alize the  ways  of  life. 

While  Demetrius  harangues  the  mob  and  the  populace 
shouts  the  name  of  its  deity,  let  us  turn  to  this  lame  tent- 
maker  whose  teaching  is  so  bad  for  business.  What  of 
him?  They  may  cry  him  down  now.  They  may  drag 
him  into  the  street  and  shed  his  blood.  But  the  temples 
of  Diana  will  pass  away,  and  on  the  ruins  of  their  magnifi- 
cence will  arise  altars  to  Paul's  God,  a  God  not  made  with 
hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens. 

At  all  the  great  crossroads  of  human  history  we  find 
such  men,  the  apostles  of  an  unpopular  cause,  unmoved 
while  selfishness  schemes  and  ignorance  clamors,  serene  in 
the  faith  that  the  truth  they  preach  must  conquer  the 
rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world,  turning  the  defeats 
of  to-dav  into  immortal  victories. 


JEHOVAH  ON  WOMAN'S  RIGHTS 


Then  drew  near  the  daughters  of  Zelophehad  .  .  .  and 
they  stood  before  Moses  saying,  .  .  .  Give  unto  us  a  posses- 
sion among  the  brethren  of  our  father.  And  Moses  brought 
their  case  before  Jehovah  and  Jehovah  spoke  unto  Moses, 
saying,The  daughters  of  Zelophehad  speak  right :  thou  shalt 
surely  give  them  a  possession  of  an  inheritance  among  their 
father's  brethren. — Numbers. 


When,  in  America,  we  established  the  principle  of  gov- 
ernment by  consent  of  the  governed,  we  were  the  path- 
finders of  the  world.  Now  mankind  has  moved  up  to 
where  we  were.  No  one  seriously  proposes  to  take  the 
ballot  from  any  man  because,  in  some  other  man's  judg- 
ment, it  is  not  good  for  him  to  possess  it.  So  would  the 
suggestion  seem  preposterous  to  deprive  some  men  of  the 
ballot  because  others  do  not  appreciate  it. 

Having  adopted  the  principle  that  voting  is  a  God- 
given  right,  not  a  man-given  privilege,  some  us  desire  now 
to  apply  the  principle  to  women  as  well  as  men. 

We  declare  that  all  women  are  created  equal,  that  they 
are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable 
rights,  and  that  among  these  is  the  right  to  vote.  What 
arguments  are  urged  against  this  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence for  women?  The  same  arguments  that  were  once 
urged  against  the  political  emancipation  of  men. 

The  lust  of  power  is  a  vice  of  the  human  species.  Spe- 
cial privileges  are  not  graciously  surrendered.  The  right 
to  vote  was  once  monopolized  by  a  few  landed  proprietors. 
These  proprietors  protested  with  great  energy  that  if  the 
propertyless  mob  secured  the  ballot  there  would  be  a  speedy 


go  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

end  of  all  law  and  liberty.  In  their  eyes  these  unemanci- 
pated  men  were  not  competent  to  vote.  These  same  men, 
having  become  emancipated,  insist  that  while  they  are  com- 
petent, their  sisters  are  not. 

"But,"  said  the  propertyless  mob,  "we  want  the  ballot, 
that  our  needs  and  desires  may  be  represented  in  govern- 
ment." The  proprietors  answered,  just  as  the  men  now 
answer  the  women.  They  assured  the  mob  that  they,  the 
owners  of  property,  could  be  trusted  to  represent  the  peo- 
ple without  property. 

These  proprietors  said,  further,  "The  rabble  does  not 
really  want  to  vote.  There  are  a  few  noisy  ones  who 
clamor  for  the  suffrage.  The  most  of  them  are  meek  and 
desire  only  to  stay  at  home,  and  take  no  interest  in  politics. 
They  desire  to  be  spared  the  trouble  of  voting."  That 
charge  is  no  truer  of  the  women  to-day  than  it  was  then  of 
the  men.  About  one-sixth  of  the  qualified  voters  partici- 
pated in  the  election  when  the  Federal  Constitution  was 
adopted.  In  no  woman  suffarage  state  is  such  indifference 
shown  on  the  part  of  woman  voters  as  was  shown  by  the 
men  who  were  qualified  to  vote  for  the  legislatures  which 
ratified  the  Nation's  supreme  law. 

Most  of  the  arguments  now  urged  against  woman 
suffrage  were  worn  threadbare  fifty  and  one  hundred 
years  ago  in  the  fight  against  manhood  suffrage.  These 
arguments  are  not  born  of  logic.  They  are  the  trumped- 
up  defenses  which  we  offer  as  resistance  to  the  logic  of 
events. 

Sixty  years  ago,  with  the  single  exception  of  Oberlin,  no 
American  college  was  open  to  women.  The  same  philos- 
ophy which  denies  to  woman  the  ballot  now,  argued  against 
co-education  then.  We  are  told  that  woman  suffrage  will 
spoil  our  mothers  and  sisters  for  their  womanly  duties.  It 
was  just  as  earnestly  argued  that  a  college  education  would 


Jehovah  on   Woman's  Rights  91 

spoil  them.  No  one  would  now  make  the  claim  that  an 
education  makes  a  woman  unfit  to  be  a  wife  and  mother. 
We  do  not  now  consider  ignorance  to  be  an  adornment  of 
the  feminine  sex.  We  are  quite  reconciled  to  the  educated 
woman.  We  are  even  proud  of  her.  Still,  some  think 
that  being  a  political  ninny  is  essential  to  her  womanly 
glory. 

Chattel  slavery  as  an  institution  rested  on  the  theory 
that  black  men  belonged  to  the  brute  creation.  No  justifi- 
cation of  slavery  could  stand  except  the  defense  that  the 
negro  was  not  a  man.  The  slaves  were  a  part  of  the  cattle 
of  the  plantation.  Like  the  work-horses,  they  were  outside 
the  scope  of  human  ethics.  This  is  the  vicious  premise 
which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  argument  against  woman 
suffrage.  The  argument  rests  on  the  assumption  of  wom- 
an's mental  inferiority.  This  theory  is  unction  to  the 
masculine  soul.  There  is  a  little  divinity  that  doth  hedge 
about  the  male  voter.  He  resent  woman's  claim  of  politi- 
cal equality.  He  insists  upon  his  high  prerogative.  Wom- 
an, like  the  chattel  slave,  is  different.  She  is  in  a  class  by 
herself.  She  may  darn  stockings,  but  she  cannot  drive 
nails.  She  may  tie  hair-ribbons,  but  she  cannot  mend  a 
lock.  She  may  have  the  divine  knack  of  converting  a  house 
into  a  home,  but  the  big  matters  of  state  which  require 
real  brains,  of  course,  these  are  quite  beyond  her.  In  such 
matters  she  is  only  a  simple  woman,  and,  with  becoming 
modesty,  should  be  silent  and  learn  of  her  husband. 

The  male  voter  knows  that  in  the  matter  of  physical 
strength  woman  is  inferior  to  him,  and  by  an  easy  and 
flattering  inference,  he  concludes  that  he  must  therefore 
be  her  mental  superior.  This  inference  is  bolstered  up  by 
the  fact  that  most  women  are  simpletons  about  politics. 
But  consider  the  reason.  The  social  custom  relegates 
woman  to  a  narrow  domestic  routine,  and  excludes  her 


92  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

from  any  direct  participation  in  the  functions  of  govern- 
ment. This  custom  does  wrong  to  the  mind  of  woman. 
It  dwarfs  her  mentality.  It  cuts  her  off  from  the  mental 
reactions  and  broadening  influences  of  civic  responsibilities. 

The  inferiority  of  woman  is  cultivated.  It  is  society- 
made.  Woman  is  not  taught  to  respect  her  own  mind. 
She  succumbs  to  social  suggestion.  She  acquires  a  low 
estimate  of  herself.  She  comes  to  be  proud  of  her  inferior- 
ity. She  affects  it  as  she  does  curls  and  corsets,  because 
she  is  made  to  feel  that  in  this  lies  her  charm. 

If  you  tell  your  boy  that  it  is  manly  to  climb  trees,  but 
rebuke  your  daughter  for  being  so  unladylike ;  if  you  send 
the  boy  out  to  games  that  harden  his  muscles,  and  keep 
the  girl  in  with  a  mirror  and  curling-irons;  if  you  inspire 
the  boy  to  prepare  for  the  task  of  a  citizen,  but  tell  your 
girl  by  words  and  actions  every  day  that  people  will  like 
her  best  if  she  is  a  pretty  doll;  if  you  tell  her  that  cos- 
metics are  more  charming  than  a  knowledge  of  civics,  or 
that  paint  is  better  than  opinions  about  politics ;  if  you  tell 
her  that,  and  all  society  tells  her  that;  if  you  force  your 
daughter  into  that  narrow  mold  while  you  open  every 
avenue  for  your  boy's  development,  you  yourself  are  re- 
sponsible for  her  inferiority.  Put  your  girl  in  hobble  skirts 
and  set  her  down  in  the  parlor  to  wait  for  some  man  to 
come  and  marry  her,  and  if  she  amounts  to  anything,  it 
will  be  in  spite  of  you.  Let  her  run  and  ride  and  climb 
with  the  boys,  and  encourage  her  to  be  free  and  self- 
reliant,  and  let  her  grow  up  without  the  dwarfing  sugges- 
tion that  it  is  nice  to  be  a  nonentity,  and  she  will  prove 
herself  in  her  own  way  the  equal  of  her  brother,  and  you 
will  rejoice  in  the  flowering  of  her  personality,  and  you 
will  be  forced  to  respect  her  capabilities  as  much  as  you 
respect  the  mind  of  your  son. 

This  idea  of  woman's  inferiority  is  a  remnant  of  past 


Jehovah  on   Woman's  Rights  93 

ignorance;  it  is  like  a  Hottentot's  slit  nose;  it  is  like  the 
mandarin's  long  finger-nails;  it  is  a  disgusting  habit  of 
thought  which  is  as  unworthy  of  man  as  it  is  untrue  of 
woman. 

This  view  of  woman  which  reluctantly  opened  the  col- 
leges to  her  and  which  still  excludes  her  from  civic  life — 
this  is  a  survival  of  orientalism.  We  have  substituted  the 
home  for  the  harem,  and  the  veil  has  been  cast  aside. 
But  we  are  not  yet  wholly  emancipated  from  that  wither- 
ing and  cruel  conception  of  woman  which,  in  the  east,  is 
symbolized  by  the  veil  and  the  harem. 

The  woman  suffrage  movement  means  more  than  the 
demand  for  the  ballot.  It  is  profoundly  deeper  than  this. 
It  is  a  movement  for  the  complete  effacement  of  that 
oriental  tinge  of  thought;  it  is  a  movement  for  the  com- 
plete recognition  of  woman's  right  to  the  free  expression 
of  her  own  personality.  If  we  were  to  embrace  this  better 
thought ;  if  we  were  to  take  woman  into  civic  partnership ; 
if  we  were  to  show  that  we  really  could  rise  to  this  con- 
ception of  the  equality  and  democracy  of  the  sexes,  this 
better  thought  would  come  like  cleansing  sunshine  to 
sweeten  and  purify  all  the  relationships  between  men  and 
women.  It  would  be  a  long  step  upward  in  the  school  of 
civilization.  It  would  be  a  victory  of  reason  over  igno- 
rance and  prejudice,  of  chivalry  over  cowardice  and  stupid- 
ity, of  love  and  light  over  the  errors  that  fetter  the  spirit 
of  man. 

Citizenship,  too,  is  a  religion.  Voting  is  a  kind  of  sacra- 
ment by  which  the  citizen-soul  feels  the  inspiration  of  sov- 
ereignty and  holds  communion  with  the  God  of  human 
destiny. 

So  I  say,  honor  thy  father,  and  thy  mother  also,  with 
the  ballot.  Let  the  sister  share  with  the  brother  this  great 
dignity.  As  men  and  women  bow  together  in  the  sane- 


94  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

tuary,  so  let  them  stand  together  at  the  polls — for  by  the 
votes  of  a  free  state  God  answers  the  prayers  of  His 
people. 


The  Old  Vine  Street  Congregational  Church,  where 
Mr.  Bigelow  began  his  pastorate  in  1895 


A  FOURTEEN-MILLION-DOLLAR  HORSE 

As  the  partridge  that  sitteth  on  eggs  that  she  hath  not 
laid,  so  is  he  that  getteth  riches,  and  not  by  right. — Jeremiah. 

The  president  of  a  certain  traction  line  once  told  a  com- 
mittee of  Congress  that  there  was  not  a  dollar  of  water  in 
the  stock  of  his  company.  He  should,  however,  have  ad- 
mitted that  there  was  a  fourteen-million-dollar  horse  in  it. 

Suppose  that  the  people  of  Fruit  Hill,  the  little  com- 
munity where  I  live,  were  so  anxious  to  have  some  one  run 
an  express  line  into  town  that  they  offered  to  loan  me  a 
horse  for  a  year  if  I  would  buy  a  wagon  and  engage  in 
the  express  business. 

What  would  be  said  of  me  if,  after  accepting  the  loan  of 
the  horse,  and  investing  in  a  wagon,  I  should  sell  both  the 
horse  and  the  wagon.  They  would  call  me  a  horse-thief. 

But  suppose,  after  borrowing  the  horse,  I  had  organized 
a  stock  company,  and  sold  stock  equal  to  the  value  of  both 
horse  and  wagon.  At  the  end  of  the  year  I  would  have 
been  compelled  to  surrender  the  horse,  and  the  investors 
would  have  had  nothing  but  the  wagon  to  secure  their 
stock,  the  face  value  of  which  would  represent  both  the 
horse  and  the  wagon.  I  would  still  be  a  horse-thief,  would 
I  not? 

Public  utility  corporations  have  been  financed  exactly 
that  way.  The  franchise  is  the  horse.  The  physical  prop- 
erty is  the  wagon.  The  horse  is  loaned  to  the  company, 
and  must  be  returned.  But  all  street-car  companies  sell 
the  horse  before  the  time  comes  to  give  it  back,  and  then 
try  to  get  the  public  to  buy  the  old  wagon  in  at  the  price 
of  a  horse  and  a  new  wagon. 


g6  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

In  the  case  of  the  particular  traction  company  in  ques- 
tion, the  earnings  had  been  capitalized,  and  stock  was  sold 
to  the  public  for  the  full  value  of  both  the  franchise  and 
the  property — the  horse  and  the  wagon.  Deducting  from 
the  capitalization  a  liberal  allowance  for  the  wagon,  four- 
teen millions  of  securities  were  left.  That  much  had  been 
issued  against  the  horse.  Yet  this  horse  had  only  been 
loaned  to  the  company. 

When  the  day  of  reckoning  comes  the  court  will  allow 
the  company,  let  us  say,  fifteen  million  dollars  for  the 
wagon.  The  company  will  then  claim  fourteen  million 
dollars  more. 

At  this  juncture  the  following  court  dialogue  might  be 
imagined : 

The  Judge:  "For  what  do  you  demand  fourteen  mil- 
lion dollars  more?" 

The  Attorney:     "For  the  horse,  your  Honor." 

The  Judge:     "To  whom  does  that  horse  belong?" 

The  Attorney:  "It  is  the  city's  horse  now,  your  Honor, 
but  we  think  it  would  promote  business  confidence  if  the 
city  would  pay  us  for  it." 

The  Judge:  "That  is  an  extraordinary  proposition. 
Why  should  the  city  pay  for  its  own  horse?" 

The  Attorney:  "I  suppose,  your  Honor,  because  the 
company  has  had  it  so  long,  and  besides,  the  company  has 
already  sold  the  horse." 

The  Judge:  "What!  sold  a  horse  that  you  did  not 
own?" 

The  Attorney:  "Well,  perhaps  that  is  not  quite  the 
way  to  put  it.  What  happened  is  that  the  company  capi- 
talized its  earnings  with  the  horse  and  wagon,  and  sold  the 
stock.  That  might  be  called  selling  the  horse." 

The  Judge:  "That's  what  I  call  it.  You  sold  a  horse 
which  belonged  to  the  city.  You  sold  a  borrowed  horse, 


A  Fourteen-Million-Dollar  Horse  97 

and  kept  the  money.  Now,  when  it  is  time  to  return  the 
horse,  you  want  the  city  to  pay  you  fourteen  million  dol- 
lars for  it.  Don't  you  think  you  are  pretty  lucky  if  you 
are  not  prosecuted  as  horse-thieves?" 

The  Attorney:  "Your  Honor  well  knows  that  it  is  the 
custom  to  put  men  in  jail  for  stealing  twenty-dollar  horses, 
or  fifty-dollar  horses,  or  hundred-dollar  horses,  but  your 
Honor  is  aware  that  there  is  no  precedent  for  criminal 
action  against  those  who  steal  fourteen-million-dollar 
horses.  The  horse  in  question  is  so  valuable,  your  Honor, 
that  the  suggestion  of  guilt  is  preposterous.  Besides,  the 
people  concerned  in  this  transaction  are  our  best  people. 
You  will  pardon  me,  your  Honor,  for  saying  that  it  seems 
exceedingly  anarchistic  to  talk  of  prosecuting  as  horse- 
thieves  such  worthy  people.  One  wonders  what  our  so- 
ciety is  coming  to." 

Now,  there  never  was  a  court  scene  like  this,  and  prob- 
ably never  will  be.  What  always  happens  is  that  the 
company  hires  experts  to  appear  before  public  utility  com- 
missions and  courts  to  hide  this  horse,  so  that  the  city  will 
buy  it  back  without  knowing  it. 

If  they  called  this  horse  Charley,  or  Clarence,  or  any- 
thing of  that  sort,  the  people  would  probably  refuse  to 
pay  for  it.  But  when  they  call  it  Overhead  Charges',  or 
Going  Concern,  or  Obsolescence,  or  Good  Will,  they  get 
by  with  the  nag. 

Some  of  the  old  horse  is  sure  to  get  into  the  valuation 
in  spite  of  anything  that  can  be  done.  Such  is  the  defer- 
ence that  is  paid  to  well-capitalized  wrongs.  Besides,  it  is 
so  easy  to  take  pennies  from  poor  people  in  street-cars  to 
pay  millions  to  rich  people  in  automobiles. 

Putting  dead  horses  in  valuations,  marked  Obsolescence, 
is  one  of  the  respectable  ways  of  getting  "riches  and  not 
by  right." 


SONS  OF  THUNDER 

Wilt  thou  that  we  bid  fire  to  come  down  from  heaven  and 
consume  them?  But  he  turned  and  rebuked  them. — Luke. 

A  Roman  emperor  had  a  saying:  "If  the  gods  are  in- 
sulted, let  them  look  to  it  themselves." 

An  example  of  not  following  this  advice  was  furnished 
by  the  editor  of  a  religious  paper  who  had  read  accounts 
of  a  sermon  by  the  writer,  entitled  "Boxes  of  Alabaster." 

It  was  suggested  that,  of  all  the  New  Testament  wom- 
en, Mary,  the  sister  of  Martha,  seemed  to  have  the  greatest 
appreciation  of  Jesus.  Had  not  Jesus  been  crucified,  the 
companionship  might  have  ripened  into  the  love  of  a  beau- 
tiful marriage. 

The  writer  remembers,  as  a  schoolboy  in  the  second 
grade,  having  drawn  a  kite  upon  his  slate.  The  teacher 
passing  down  the  aisle  noticed  the  work  and  praised  him 
for  it.  Thus  encouraged,  he  added  an  embellishment  by 
way  of  a  tail.  Soon  the  teacher  passed  again,  and  when 
she  saw  the  tail  she  boxed  his  ears.  Why  this  young  Miss 
of  a  school  teacher  should  have  objected  to  the  tail  of  that 
kite  is  one  of  the  unsolved  puzzles  of  the  writer's  life. 

It  is  likewise  a  mystery  that  the  religious  editor  should 
have  broken  out  into  such  a  torrent  of  abuse  because  the 
names  of  Mary  and  Jesus  were  thus  linked  together. 

The  editor  stoutly  affirms  that  he  "freely  and  gladly" 
concedes  to  all  "that  peace  and  liberty  of  worship"  which 
he  expects  for  himself.  Then,  to  show  how  he  concedes 
peace  and  liberty  to  others,  he  refers,  in  the  same  editorial, 
to  the  preacher  and  his  Alabaster  Box  sermon,  in  such  lan- 
guage as  this: 


IOO  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

"Coarse  blasphemy,  downright  blasphemy,  diabolical 
beyond  the  pale  of  the  respectable,  wanton  insult,  lime- 
light-loving parson,  piebald  politics,  pulpit  profanity, 
mountebank,  blasphemer." 

This  recalls  an  editorial  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  the 
day  after  the  1896  election,  in  which  Mr.  Bryan  was  re- 
ferred to  as  "the  master  of  lies  and  blasphemies  and  for- 
geries, and  all  the  nameless  iniquities  of  that  campaign 
against  the  Ten  Commandments." 

On  one  notable  occasion  the  disciples  of  Jesus  proposed 
to  start  this  sort  of  thing,  but  "he  turned  and  rebuked 
them." 

An  ill-tempered  man,  with  a  weak  cause,  very  soon 
abandons  argument  and  reaches  for  mud,  rocks,  or  any- 
thing he  can  get  his  hands  on.  Erskine,  in  the  trial  of 
Tom  Paine's  publisher,  related  to  the  court  a  story  of 
Lucian  which  is  not  without  application: 

"Jupiter  and  a  countryman  were  walking  together,  con- 
versing with  great  freedom  and  familiarity  concerning  the 
subject  of  heaven  and  earth.  The  countryman  listened 
with  attention  and  acquiesced,  while  Jupiter  strove  only  to 
convince  him.  But  happening  to  hint  a  doubt,  Jupiter 
turned  hastily  around  and  threatened  him  with  his  thun- 
der. 'Ah,  ha,'  said  the  countryman,  'now  Jupiter,  I  know 
that  you  are  wrong;  you  are  always  wrong  when  you  ap- 
peal to  your  thunder.' ' 

It  is  said  that  there  is  a  man  in  Cincinnati  who  has 
never  taken  a  bath.  He  contends  that  this  business  of 
bathing  is  all  "tommyrot."  A  man  does  not  need  to  wash 
the  dirt  off.  The  proper  way  is  for  him  to  sweat  it  out. 
He  changes  his  underwear  once  a  month,  is  contemptuous 
of  bath-tubs,  and  is  hale  and  hearty  at  seventy-five. 

I  gladly  concede  to  that  man  his  peace  and  freedom, 


Sons  of   Thunder  IOI 

but  I  refuse  to  sit  next  to  him  over  the  warm  radiator  of 
a  street-car. 

There  are  some  men  in  this  town  who  haven't  had  a 
mental  bath  in  six  hundred  years.  They  are  still  thinking 
the  thoughts  of  the  dark  ages.  They  walk  around  in  the 
light  of  our  twentieth-century  freedom,  blinking  like  bats. 

The  world  is  bathed  in  liberty,  but  they  are  not.  They 
are  the  unreconstructed  children  of  ignorance  and  hate. 
It  was  the  like  of  them  that  conceived  and  executed  the 
horrors  of  religious  inquisitions. 

If  thoughts  could  be  smelt,  some  minds  would  be  nau- 
seating. A  narrow,  fanatical,  vehement,  libelous  mind  is 
the  foulest  thing  on  earth.  No  decent  man  will  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  such  people.  When  they  get  within 
smelling  distance  of  him  he  moves  away.  They  need  a 
bath. 

It  is  sometimes  suggested  to  the  preacher  that  he  should 
measure  his  words,  and  that  he  should  avoid  saying  things 
which  provoke  such  fanatical  criticism.  If  a  man  heeded 
that  advice,  his  sermons  would  soon  look  like  censored  war 
dispatches  from  the  front. 

Why  should  not  each  man  speak  out,  in  good  temper,  to 
be  sure,  but  frankly  and  fearlessly,  all  that  he  thinks  ? 

Liberty  is  worth  a  sacrifice  for  its  own  sake.  If  we  were 
to  suppress  all  differences  of  opinion  we  should  have  no 
opportunity  to  learn  self-control  and  charity. 

One  owes  some  debt  of  loyalty  to  those  noble  men  of 
the  past  who  did  speak  out,  in  the  face  of  fearful  martyr- 
doms, that  we  might  enjoy  our  heritage  of  freedom.  Can 
any  man  have  a  higher  mission  than  to  use  and  to  defend 
and  to  compel  others  to  respect  this  right  to  speak  the  truth 
as  one  sees  it? 

One  of  the  last  of  the  Smithfield  martyrs  was  charged 
with  holding  "pestilent  opinions."  In  fact,  he  was  a  sort 


IO2  The  Religion   of  Revolution 

of  Unitarian,  like  ex-President  Taft.  He  did  not  worship 
Christ  as  God.  King  James  sent  for  him.  He  was 
brought  to  the  palace  from  the  prison.  The  King  demand- 
ed to  know  whether  or  not  he  prayed  daily  to  Jesus  Christ. 

If  there  was  ever  a  time  for  expediency,  this  was  the 
time.  If  Bartholomew  Legate  made  the  wrong  answer,  it 
meant  lopped-off  ears,  perhaps,  or  torn-out  tongue,  or 
gouged-out  eyes,  or  death  in  prison  devoured  by  rats,  any- 
thing which  the  cruelty  of  man  might  invent.  Badgered 
thus  by  his  bigoted  king,  this  martyr  of  Smithfield  replied 
honestly,  that  he  had  prayed  to  Christ  in  the  days  of  his 
ignorance,  but  not  for  the  last  seven  years.  For  that  he 
was  tied  to  a  stake  and  burned  to  death. 

Do  you  say  he  was  a  fool?  Do  not  call  him  a  fool. 
Get  down  on  your  knees  to  his  memory.  If  some  men  had 
not  been  willing  to  tell  the  truth  in  the  face  of  certain 
death,  we  would  still  be  cringeing  at  the  feet  of  despots. 

Let  us  get  down  on  our  knees  to  the  God  who  gave 
Bartholomew  Legate  strength  to  be  a  man.  With  such 
examples  before  us,  how  can  we  shrink  from  the  milder 
persecutions  in  our  day? 

The  mediocre  man  who  tells  us  the  truth  as  he  sees  it, 
flat  and  plain,  will  become  a  greater  intellectual  force,  and 
rise  to  a  higher  moral  stature,  and  will  have  more  honor 
in  the  end,  than  he  who,  with  greater  talent,  tries  to  de- 
cide how  much  of  truth  is  good  for  the  people  to  hear 
and  for  him  to  tell. 

Let  no  man  get  the  notion  that  he  is  running  the  uni- 
verse. It  is  his  business  to  be  honest  in  speaking  his  own 
thoughts  and  respectful  of  the  freedom  of  others.  Taking 
care  of  the  consequences  is  the  job  of  the  Almighty. 


MENTAL  SANITATION 

As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he. — Proverbs. 

One  may  agree  that  behind  all  matter  there  is  a  transcend- 
ent Mind,  and  that  it  is  not  in  our  power  to  say  what 
spiritual  forces  may  not  do  to  mold  and  master  the  mate- 
rial body.  Certainly  the  mind  may  be  complete  master, 
at  least  in  respect  to  that  function  of  the  body,  the  abuse 
of  which  inflicts  the  most  revolting  diseases  upon  the  race. 

Lasciviousness  is  not  a  craving  of  the  body.  It  is  a  mor- 
bidity of  the  mind.  It  is  not  a  need  of  the  flesh.  It  is  a 
sickness  of  the  will.  The  only  medicine  for  it  is  pure 
thoughts.  Pure  thoughts  can  be  ordered  in  place  of  im- 
pure thoughts,  just  as  goods  can  be  ordered  from  the 
grocery. 

Some  cities  have  "segregated  districts."  They  keep 
their  brothels  on  this  or  that  street,  so  they  say.  But  they 
are  mistaken.  We  keep  our  brothels  in  our  minds.  The 
health  officer  may  fumigate  our  house,  but  who  will  fumi- 
gate our  imagination  ?  Mental  sanitation  is  a  great  science, 
and  every  man  may  be  his  own  expert. 

The  great  teacher  put  his  finger  on  the  real  sore  when 
He  said:  "He  that  looketh  after  the  object  of  an  evil 
desire,  to  possess  it,  hath  committed  sin  already  in  his 
heart." 

There  is  a  purity  that  is  merely  legal.  There  are 
cowardly  minds  that  sin  in  thought  only.  Some  dare  to 
live  as  they  think,  but  are  secretive.  Their  life  has  not 
the  one  redeeming  feature  of  frankness.  They  live  a  lie 
and  are  false.  Others  make  no  attempt  to  control  their 
thoughts  or  hide  their  deeds.  They  not  only  permit  them- 


IO4  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

selves  to  be  low,  but  they  permit  themselves  to  be  thought 
low.  Lacking  the  good  opinion  of  others,  they  lose  the 
last  prop  of  self-respect,  and  fall  utterly. 

There  are  others  who  try  to  keep  the  mind  clean  and 
the  conduct  blameless.  But  their  virtue  seems  to  be  of  a 
negative  sort.  They  are  convict  souls.  It  takes  all  the 
thunders  of  Sinai  to  keep  them  good. 

Morality  is  a  matter  of  taste.  The  moral  man  is  he 
who  lives  right,  not  because  he  thinks  he  has  to,  but  be- 
cause he  does  not  like  nastiness.  With  him  righteousness 
is  not  a  matter  of  compulsion.  It  is  the  law  of  his  freedom. 

This  taste  can  be  acquired.  Good  character  is  an 
achievement.  It  is  a  product  of  the  mind.  A  man  sleeps 
upstairs,  and  he  goes  down  to  breakfast.  He  may  go 
down  or  up,  according  to  his  choice.  So  there  are  upper 
and  lower  stories  of  the  mind,  and  a  man  may  go  where 
he  pleases  with  his  thoughts.  He  may  dwell  on  any  floor 
he  likes.  Deeds  are  the  blossoms  of  thoughts.  As  a  man 
thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he. 

If  one  were  to  name  the  cardinal  virtues  in  the  order  of 
their  importance,  he  might  suggest,  first,  kindliness  and 
genuine  good  will,  especially  in  all  the  most  intimate  and 
commonplace  relations  of  life.  Next,  he  might  put  loy- 
alty— that  is,  the  desire  and  the  determination  never  to  do 
to  any  son  or  daughter  of  God  what  one  would  not  have 
done  to  his  own  son  or  daughter.  What  virtue  might  be 
put  third?  Indeed,  what  virtue  is  there  which  is  not  in- 
cluded in  these  two,  loyalty  and  good-will?  It  is  hard 
to  think  what  more  should  be  expected  of  a  man,  unless  it 
be  to  learn  to  think  straight.  If  he  learns  to  think  straight, 
he  may  even  attain  to  civic  virtue. 


A  PROFESSION  OF  FAITH 

Whom  say  ye  that  I  am  ? — Jesus. 

My  ideal  is  more  than  the  Christ  of  theology.  It  is  the 
Jesus  of  history.  It  is  not  alone  the  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
It  is  a  composite  personality  in  whom  are  merged  all  the 
Christs  of  the  centuries. 

He  is  the  gentleness  which  has  looked  with  sad  eyes  on 
the  cruelty  of  every  age.  He  is  the  pity  which  has  wit- 
nessed in  anguish  all  the  sorrows  of  men.  He  is  the  rep- 
resentative sufferer,  the  representative  lover  of  the  world, 
and  men  and  women,  countless  millions  of  them,  have 
stooped  to  touch  the  hem  of  His  garment,  and  have  risen 
in  majesty  from  the  dust. 

He  is  not  alone  the  Christ  of  the  Christian.  He  is  the 
Christ  of  the  Jew  also.  Many  have  known  Him  by  the 
name  of  Lao-tse.  Many  by  the  name  of  Buddha  divine. 
Now  he  is  some  lonely  dreamer  of  the  ghetto.  Now  a 
manacled  liberator,  expiating  in  chains  the  tyrannies  of 
men.  Again  in  a  garret  he  toils  over  his  crucibles  in 
search  of  another  of  God's  secrets  to  be  the  servitor  of 
man. 

Sometimes  you  see  in  his  eyes  the  tears  of  unutterable 
grief,  but  a  beauty  that  is  born  of  goodness,  and  a  calm 
that  only  they  know  whose  love  had  been  triumphant  in 
suffering;  and  as  you  look,  the  sadness  of  that  face  is  so 
luminous  with  joy,  the  defeat  of  it  so  prophetic  of  victory, 
that  those  tears  seem  as  though  they  might  be  the  melted 
hearts  of  all  the  martyrs  and  mothers  of  the  world.  Some- 
times you  think  you  see  on  his  brow  a  crown  of  thorns, 
when,  lo!  a  mighty  radiance  appears,  and  in  place  of  the 


io6  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

thorns,  a  kingly  diadem,  in  which  are  set  the  faces  of  all 
the  sons  of  freedom. 

This  is  humanity's  Christ.  Called  by  many  names,  hon- 
ored in  every  clime,  this  is  the  Divine  Servant,  the  Master 
of  the  World,  whose  allegiance  claims  the  hearts  of  us  all. 


EPITAPHS 

With  what  judgment  ye  judge,  ye  shall  be  judged. — Jesus. 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  country,  with  a  strange 
custom.  It  was  the  unbroken  law  of  that  country  that  a 
man  might  compose  his  own  epitaph  and  have  it  duly  re- 
corded, and  the  state  was  bound  to  have  it  carved  upon  his 
tombstone  when  he  died.  He  was  not  allowed  more  than 
ten  words,  but  in  one  brief  sentence  he  was  permitted  to 
state  the  achievements  by  which  he  commended  himself  to 
the  mercy  of  the  last  judgment.  The  curious  thing  was 
that  if  a  man  neglected  to  do  this,  and  died  without  writ- 
ing his  epitaph,  his  worst  enemy  was  required,  under  the 
law,  to  write  it  for  him. 

There  was  in  this  country  a  great  war — a  war  for  the 
liberation  of  a  race.  Whole  armies  of  brave  men  per- 
ished. But  some  stayed  at  home  and  speculated  in  army 
supplies.  A  certain  man  who  did  this  made  a  fortune. 
This  man  invested  his  fortune  in  city  real  estate.  There- 
after, every  child  that  was  born  in  the  city,  every  home 
that  was  built,  every  factory  that  was  located,  all  the 
growth  of  business  and  population,  increased  the  value  of 
this  estate. 

Finally  this  fortune  was  married  to  the  man's  son-in- 
law.  Whereupon,  of  course,  the  son-in-law  became  a  very 
wise  and  important  man.  He  became  an  authority  on  art, 
because  he  could  buy  a  million  dollars'  worth  of  pictures. 
He  became  an  authority  on  music,  because  he  could  subsi- 
dize an  orchestra.  He  became  an  authority  on  religion, 
politics,  business,  and  a  lot  of  other  things,  because,  in  this 


io8  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

country,  the  value  of  a  man's  views  depended,  for  most 
folks,  on  the  amount  of  money  he  possessed. 

It  is  charitable  to  say  that  the  luster  of  this  son-in-law 
borrowed  less  from  the  brilliancy  of  his  genius  than  from 
the  glitter  of  his  gold. 

But  he  is  said  to  have  made  some  shrewd  investments  on 
his  own  account.  He  bought  a  three-hundred-thousand- 
acre  farm,  the  most  of  which  he  held  idle,  and  on  the  rest 
of  which  he  employed  foreigners  at  eighty  cents  a  day.  By 
that  he  showed  that  he  had  some  qualifications  for  busi- 
ness, for  he  did  not  permit  patriotism  to  interfere  with 
business.  He  made  a  lucky  investment  once  in  a  baseball 
team.  But  he  made  a  notable  failure  when  he  invested  a 
huge  sum  of  money  in  a  presidential  nomination  for  a 
relative. 

This  man  owned  a  newspaper,  the  principal  editorial 
policy  of  which  was  to  abuse  radicals,  and  in  particular,  a 
certain  radical  preacher. 

Now  the  rich  man  died  without  writing  his  own 
epitaph.  Thereupon  this  preacher  was  called  upon  to  write 
it  for  him.  The  preacher  summed  up  his  life  in  this  sen- 
tence : 

"He  married  millions,  nominated  an  amiable  president, 
and  skinned  agitators." 

After  writing  that,  the  preacher  remembered  the  words : 
"With  what  judgment  ye  judge,  ye  shall  be  judged."  He 
got  to  thinking  what  he  might  expect  if  he  neglected  to 
write  his  own  epitaph,  and  some  of  his  enemies  about  town 
were  called  upon  to  write  it  for  him.  To  avoid  such  a 
fate,  he  wrote  and  had  recorded  the  best  things  he  could 
think  of  to  say  about  himself.  If  we  all  judged  others  as 
generously  as  we  always  judge  ourselves,  what  an  amiable 
world  this  would  be!  This  preacher  was  no  exception. 


Epitaphs  109 

When  it  came  to  composing  an  epitaph  on  which  he  was 
to  hang  his  hope  of  heaven,  he  just  couldn't  tell  the  bad 
about  himself.  Besides,  the  epitaph  had  to  be  limited  to 
ten  words.  When  it  came  to  telling  the  bad  in  the 
preacher's  life,  ten  words  were  not  enough  to  make  a  be- 
ginning, though  they  might  suffice  to  tell  the  good  he  had 
done.  Therefore  in  his  own  indulgent  judgment  of  him- 
self, he  requested  that  these  ten  words  should  be  inscribed 
upon  his  tombstone : 

"The  Evening  Star  was  my  enemy,  the  poor,  my  friends." 

Almost  immediately  after  that  the  preacher  died.  So 
they  both  went  to  sleep,  the  rich  man  and  the  preacher. 
The  same  earth  claimed  them.  The  distinctions  of  wealth 
were  effaced.  Their  little  quarrels  were  forgotten.  The 
years  grew  to  centuries,  the  centuries  to  cycles,  the  cycles 
lengthened  into  eternity,  until,  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  the  graves  were  opened  by  the  trumpet's  blast,  and 
each  man  stood  forth  in  his  shroud,  while  the  angel  read 
the  story  of  his  life. 

Some  were  sent  straight  to  heaven.  Others  were  dis- 
patched summarily  to  the  other  place.  But  when  the 
angel  read  the  epitaphs  of  the  rich  man  and  the  preacher, 
he  said  curtly,  with  a  commanding  gesture :  "You  two 
for  Purgatory." 

At  Purgatory  they  were  sentenced.  Their  sin  had  been 
that  each  man  saw  only  the  good  in  himself  and  only  the 
evil  in  the  other,  and  they  were  both  committed  to  stay  in 
that  place  until  they  were  willing  to  say  something  good 
of  one  another. 

But  the  preacher  won  his  release  immediately  by  send- 
ing to  the  warden  of  Purgatory  the  following  note: 


HO  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

Dear  Warden: 

I  never  did  say  anything  half  as  bad  about  that  rich 
man  as  Jesus  said  about  men  like  him,  but  I  do  think 
of  one  good  thing  I  might  have  said.  It  is  this :  The 
writers  on  the  Evening  Star  were  mostly  Socialists. 
Although  the  rich  man  hired  them  to  write  his  opin- 
ions, he  did  not  fire  them  for  thinking  their  opinions. 
On  the  contrary,  he  always  seemed  to  have  the  good 
will  of  his  employees,  without  regard  to  their  social- 
istic views,  and  for  that  I  sincerely  praise  him.  More- 
over, it  was  creditably  reported  of  him  that  he  was 
not  only  an  angel  to  a  president,  but  that  he  was  an 
.angel  compared  to  this  president,  and  quite  the  better 
fellow  of  the  two. 

And  that  was  the  note  that  got  the  preacher  out  of 
Purgatory. 

While  the  two  were  in  Purgatory  together  the  rich 
man  had  to  spend  half  his  time  being  preached  at  by  the 
preacher,  but  it  was  tolerable,  because  he  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  writing  editorials  about  the  preacher  which  the 
preacher  had  to  spend  the  other  half  of  his  time  reading. 

When  the  preacher  was  gone  and  there  was  no  longer 
the  fun  of  the  fight,  the  rich  man  got  very  tired  of  it. 
One  day  he  sent  a  note  up  to  the  warden's  office,  asking 
for  an  interview.  In  the  note  he  said : 

Dear  Warden: 

I  don't  think  I  have  had  a  square  deal  down  here. 
Why  should  I  be  punished  for  never  saying  anything 
good  about  that  preacher  when,  honestly,  I  never 
could  see  any  good  in  him?  You  don't  want  me  to 
tell  a  lie,  do  you,  just  to  get  out  of  here?  If  you  can 
show  me  any  good  there  ever  was  in  him,  I'll  give 
him  credit  for  it. 


Epitaphs  1 1 1 

The  Warden  called  the  rich  man  into  his  private  office. 

"You  say,"  he  began,  "that  you  will  give  the  preacher 
credit  if  I  can  point  out  any  good  in  him?" 

"Certainly,"  answered  the  rich  man. 

The  Warden  pressed  a  button  on  his  desk,  and  his  sec- 
retary came  in. 

"Please  bring  me  that  letter  we  received  yesterday 
from  the  preacher,"  said  the  Warden. 

The  secretary  went  out,  and  returned  at  once  with  the 
following  letter,  which  the  Warden  handed  to  the  rich 
man  to  read: 

Headquarters 
Heaven  Improvement 

Association 
Warden,  Purgatory. 
Dear  Warden : 

Had  an  uneventful  trip.  Have  been  up  here  three 
days.  I  am  surely  enjoying  the  change  of  climate. 
Hope  you  and  your  delightful  family  are  in  good 
spirits. 

It  is  that  rich  man  I  left  in  Purgatory  that  prompts 
me  to  write.  I  really  don't  think  he  deserves  to  be 
there  any  more  than  I. 

Down  on  earth  we  knew  that  if  a  man  lived  long 
enough  in  one  of  our  smoky  cities,  his  lungs,  which 
were  naturally  of  a  grey  color,  became  as  black  as 
his  shoes,  and  frequently  the  tissue  got  so  grimy  that 
it  was  impossible  for  the  man  to  breathe  right. 

We  also  noticed  that  when  a  man  lived  in  the  at- 
mosphere of  ten  millions  of  dollars  the  tissue  of  his 
brain  suffered  a  chemical  change,  so  that  it  was  abso- 
lutely impossible  for  him  to  think  right. 

It  was  not  the  money  that  hurt  the  man.     It  was 


H2  The  Religion  of  Revolution 

the  possession  of  so  much  money  in  the  presence  of 
poverty.  A  man  who  had  millions  to  spend  on  poli- 
tics or  pictures,  when  others  lacked  pennies  for  bread, 
could  not  have  a  normal  outlook  on  life.  Poverty 
starved  the  bodies  of  the  poor.  Great  wealth  in  the 
presence  of  poverty  starved  the  souls  of  the  rich. 

I  am  sure  that  if  that  rich  man  had  lived  in  a 
sane  social  order,  if  he  had  not  been  permitted  to 
marry  or  inherit  the  privilege  of  living  upon  the 
rightful  earnings  of  others,  if  his  wealth  had  been  in 
proportion  to  his  services,  if  he  had  lived  a  life  of  use- 
ful work  in  a  democratic  society,  where  no  man  could 
be  rich  enough  to  excite  envy,  or  poor  enough  to  know 
fear,  he  would  have  been  as  good  a  fellow  as  the  next 
one. 

At  any  rate,  Warden,  I  am  sorry  I  wrote  the  kind 
of  epitaph  I  did  for  him.  If  I  had  to  do  it  over  again 
I  would  change  it  to  read: 

"  Passable  millionaire.   Would  have  been  a  first-rate  poor  man." 

So,  Warden,  I  wish  you  would  let  him  out  of  Pur- 
gatory. He  really  could  not  help  thinking  I  was  bad. 
Besides,  I  gave  him  plenty  of  provocation.  If  you 
keep  him  there,  I  feel  that  I  ought  to  go  back  and 
stay  there,  too. 

The  rich  man  handed  the  letter  back  to  the  Warden  and 
remarked : 

"Well,  I  must  say,  that  letter  isn't  half  bad,  is  it? 
Really,  I  wish  I  had  my  newspaper;  I'd  give  him  a  stick 
or  two  of  thanks  for  that." 

"If  you  feel  that  way,"  said  the  Warden,  "you  are  at 
liberty  to  go.  But  let  me  give  you  a  little  advice.  You'll 
have  plenty  of  time,  you  two,  up  in  Heaven.  Before  you 


Epitaphs  1 1 3 

go  to  writing  editorials  or  preaching  sermons  about  each 
other,  you  had  better  get  acquainted  with  one  another. 
And  tell  that  to  the  preacher,  too,  when  you  meet  him. 
He  needs  it." 

The  Warden  shook  hands  warmly  as  the  rich  man  de- 
parted for  Heaven. 


So,  dear  friends,  I  take  your  hand,  and  say  Good-bye, 
hoping  that  my  words  and  deeds  may  help  some,  and  hin- 
der none,  on  their  way  to  Heaven. 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


JUN  11 


000  098  478 


Univers 
Sout] 
Libi 


